[opendtv] Re: Martin: 15% of Stations Face Smaller DTV-Coverage Areas
- From: "Don Moore" <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 06:26:38 -0400
The DTV Switch could have been an great opportunity to equalize the
differences in coverage between V's and U's; giving the U's who came
to the party late an opportunity to play on a level field. The powers
that be opted to replicate the coverage, thus keeping the playing
field favorable to VHF/older stations.
Fortunately, in the large majority of the country, coverage is
irrelevant. Cable/satellite carrage is king. Let's just do the
"wink, wink, nod, nod" and tell folks the truth. Even in the messages
broadcasting the DTV switch - "don't worry if you have cable or
satellite" - it's a shame that we have spent all this money on
transmitters and antennas to just estimate a coverage map that can be
used to force cable to pay the station to be placed on the cable
line-up.
May be the Bean Counters will figure it out.
Don Moore
Greensboro
On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 2:07 AM, Dale Kelly <dalekelly@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> See the FCC's feigned statement of surprise below. Does the term
> disingenuous, or worse, come to mind?
>
>
> Martin: 15% of Stations Face Smaller DTV-Coverage Areas
> FCC chairman tells House Telecommunications Subcommittee hearing agency
> working on identifying all of those markets.
>
> Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin told a House
> Telecommunications Subcommittee hearing audience Tuesday that the FCC was
> working on ways to help out viewers of the approximately 15% of TV stations
> with digital-TV signals that will not reach as many viewers as their analog
> signals did. One of the lessons from the Wilmington, N.C., early analog
> shutoff was the number of out-of-market viewers of NBC affiliate WECT-TV
> there that lost the signal. While some of those viewers were able to get a
> signal from an NBC affiliate in their market, some would lose access to an
> NBC station altogether, Martin said.
>
> Martin told the committee that since it was the FCC's goal for viewers not
> to lose access to signals they had historically watched, it was working on
> ways to fix the problem, including perhaps an antenna to reach those areas
> where historic out-of-market carriage was lost due to changes in the contour
> of the digital signal. Martin said that perhaps 15% of the nation's TV
> stations might have carriage shrink "in a significant way," similar to the
> changes in WECT's coverage area.
> He added that the effect of that changed contour was the key lesson learned
> from Wilmington. He said FCC engineers were working on identifying all of
> those markets -- he said it would take a few weeks -- and the FCC would
> address remedies on a case-by-case basis, calling it the "highest priority"
> for the commission. Subcommittee chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) told Martin
> the issue needed resolving "very soon," at least by communicating the fact
> to viewers who might lose their signals do to coverage-area changes.
>
> Broadcasting & Cable
>
>
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