[opendtv] FCC Launches Online COnsumer Education got DTV
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 07:25:25 -0400
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA458220.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
Are You Ready for Some HDTV?
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/4/2004 10:42:00 AM
Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell unveiled an
online effort Monday (www.dtv.gov) to help consumers better
understand the digital transition.
The site includes a shoppers' guide, FAQs, and a link to another
online HDTV effort (www.checkhd.com), the industry-backed portal
created by Decisionmark that will bring up available HDTV programming
in a particular market, linked to zip code.
Www.dtv.gov is part of a general consumer-focused push for DTV by the
FCC. Powell says that effort will also include his own halftime
appearance on Monday Night Football being interviewed about digital
TV.
The FCC has a plan to speed the transition to DTV by defining a set
as receiving digital when it can receive a signal converted to
analog. Part of that plan is the potential to subsidize the
conversion of a primary set in the homes of those who can't afford
the technology.
Powell said that he might support a subsidy for additional sets in
those homes, though he added that he does not support the idea of
defining success as every TV in every home DTV-ready. If that is the
measure, he said, "let's be honest with ourselves, the transition
will take 50 years."
Powell said it was possible that the FCC would decide a number of key
DTV transition issues by year's end, including multicasting
must-carry, public interest obligations, and just how a DTV-ready
house is to be defined. According to statute, when 85% of the TV
homes in a market can receive a DTV signal, the FCC can begin
reclaiming spectrum for auction.
There were a dozen of so public activists outside the FCC
headquarters Monday, complaining that the FCC press conference/panel
session on HDTV was simply an effort to sell TV sets. When asked to
respond to that complaint, Powell said that it was not an attempt to
sell sets, but to give consumers the information to buy new sets in a
transition mandated by the government.
He said the public interest issues were being addressed in pending
FCC rulemakings but that this was a consumer-targeted effort.
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