[opendtv] Re: Mark's Monday Memo
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "OpenDTV (E-mail)" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 15:58:33 -0500
Mark Schubin wrote:
> "Criteria" is plural. Here are the criteria specified by
> the Balanced Budget Act of 1997:
> - 85%+ in a market (exactly 85% doesn't cut it) with either
> - a receiver or converter "capable of receiving the digital
> television service signals of the television stations
> licensed in such market" or
> - a subscription "to a multichannel video programming
> distributor... that carries one of the digital television
> service programming channels of each of the television
> stations broadcasting such a channel in such market."
>
> So, if a "market" is defined as a Nielsen Designated Market
> Area (as the FCC uses the term), the criteria are not met
> even in New York. I have neither something "capable of
> receiving" those signals nor a subscription to a service
> delivering "each of the television stations" in my market.
> My cable system, Time Warner Cable of New York City (the
> nation's largest, I think) doesn't even carry (by mutual
> agreement) a full-power TV station located just eight miles
> from its head end, let alone other stations licensed in my
> market but located at greater distances from me and my cable
> system.
So in a market such as NYC, in which 80 percent already
subscribe to cable alone, and DBS + cable likely increases
the number of households not depending on OTA for TV to well
90 percent, one wonders why a local station agrees not to be
carried on cable. One could argue that such a station could
either (a) negotiate carriage before NTSC shutoff, or (b)
continue to be satisified with a small audience. One might
conclude that they are *already* happy to disenfranchise a
healthy portion of their market.
Who knows. After NTSC shutoff, their audience might actually
increase, if the effect of analog shutoff is the same as
what Berlin experienced (i.e. they got more OTA viewership
after analog shutoff).
> Meeting the "each" and "capable of receiving" criteria is
> going to be tough in many markets.
Yes, if you go strictly by the letter of the law rather than
the spririt of the law. Should the FCC force a station happy
to serve under 10 percent of their market now, to go
mainstream after the transition?
Bert
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