[opendtv] Fritts Fears Powell Is 'Abandoning' Digital Transition
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 11:24:56 -0500
Fritts Fears Powell Is 'Abandoning' Digital Transition
By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/4/2004 10:01:00 PM
When it comes to the Federal Communications Commission's new ideas
about digital television, National Association of Broadcasters
president Eddie Fritts doesn't like what he hears.
"Our concern is, Chairman Powell may have abandoned the digital
transition," Fritts told Broadcasting & Cable.
Fritts' remarks are his first public comment on a developing FCC plan
to accelerate the transition to DTV and are unusually blunt for the
trade group chief.
"We thought we were going from analog to digital," Fritss said. "
This would be going from digital to analog." Fritts is complaining
about a proposal to change the way the government counts how many
homes are getting digital service from local stations.
If the plan actually goes into effect, homes would be counted even
when they get only a cable version that has been converted from
digital to analog. That's a critical change for broadcasters because
it would bring the day when stations must return their old analog
channels to the government much more quickly than most expected and
probably before many homes purchase TVs sets equipped to get digital
on their own."It's almost like moving goal posts in middle of the
game," Fritts complained.
The cost for broadcasters is that most cable viewers-the
overwhelming majority of the TV audience-won't get high-definition
pictures or other new services digital allows stations to offer. At
the same time the FCC hasn't laid out a solid game plan for making
sure the 15% of Americans who rely solely on over-the-air analog for
their TV will continue to get programming.
Last week, Powell cautioned broadcasters not to get up in arms about
the plan, saying that several "options" will be presented to insure
that stations can distribute true digital services. The FCC chairman
hasn't made the plan public, but his staff has briefed Capitol Hill
and industry officials on initial details.
Powell and his staff are pursuing the controversial idea because
they are under enormous pressure from some in Congress, other
telecommunications industries and even the White House to reclaim
broadcasters' analog channels and auction them off for new cutting
edge wireless businesses and to cut the deficit.
They will also hand over some of the channels to police and other
emergency services. Because of a shortage of communications channels,
these essential services are desperate for new capacity. Fritts says
the government is kidding itself by predicting a windfall from future
channel sales if the handful of completed selloffs are any
indication. "Auctions have fallen enormously short of what was
anticipated," he says.
He praised Powell for broadcast-friendly steps taken during the past
two years to speed the transition, such as requiring most TVs to be
equipped for over-the-air digital and approving content-protection
technology to block illegal Internet streaming of television shows.
But compounding broadcasters disappointment is the foot-dragging on
multicast mustcarry. "This is snatching defeat from jaws of victory,"
Fritts says. "Broadcasters thought we were on track." Powell said
broadcasters are over dramatizing because some station owners "enjoy
sitting on two sets of spectrum."
As a whole, he says, broadcasters would benefit because they would
no longer pay electric costs of transmitting both an analog and
digital channel and from the simple certainty of knowing when the
transition to DTV would end.
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