[opendtv] Senators Reach DTV Delay Compromise
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2009 17:29:04 -0500
Confusing. It looks like some added $ to the coupon program are the
compromise, and no additional delay will be requested. Whew.
Bert
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Senators Reach DTV Delay Compromise
01.23.2009
The saga of the potential delay to the Feb. 17 DTV transition continued
Friday morning as key senators reached a deal on the legislation.
Incoming Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.,
said late Thursday a new measure was replacing the bill he filed a week
ago. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, the panel's top Republican, had
resisted the earlier measure and said Jan. 8 that it was "too early" to
delay the transition.
Friday morning, she indicated she supported the revised measure.
"I had serious concerns about shifting the digital television transition
without a sound plan to inform consumers or address the converter box
coupon shortage," she said in a statement. "I am pleased that Chairman
Rockefeller worked with me to address many of the concerns with the
early proposals. These changes will help consumers whose coupons have
expired, and allow TV stations that are prepared, and ready, to move
forward without the requirement of simulcasting. Senator Rockefeller's
personal commitment to me to not seek another delay provides needed
certainty to bring this transition to a conclusion."
The fixes to the converter-box program will allow some of those
subsidies to flow again; requests for some 2.5 million coupons remain
unfulfilled because the program's funding has run out.
The compromise would also include protections for public-safety users
with plans for spectrum that will be vacated by the transition.
Legislation may also be needed to modify the 30-day Nightlight program
already in motion to allow some stations to keep analog signals up with
emergency and DTV-related information until March 19.
A Senate aide familiar with the process said it was hoped that the bill
would reach the Senate floor for unanimous consent next week.
Things are less further along on the House side, where Rockefeller's
counterpart, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., scheduled a markup for a delay
bill on Wednesday but then canceled it. The top Republican on the House
Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, has consistently resisted
what he has seen as alarmism on the DTV issue and accused Democrats of
showing panic in their recent push for delay. Barton recently cited
Commerce Department numbers suggesting that just 200,000 households have
taken no action toward obtaining a converter box, a sharp contrast to
the 6.5 million Nielsen recently pegged as unprepared, although that
figure includes people who have already ordered or obtained coupons for
converter boxes.
Barton introduced separate legislation Friday, to authorize (but not
appropriate) $250 million for the converter-box coupon program,
suggesting it could immediately enable the NTIA to resume sending
coupons to viewers.
"If our work had not been interrupted by the Obama transition team,
legislation could have been through the House and the Senate by now,"
Barton said in a statement.
Whatever the number of unprepared viewers, plenty of them are in
Hutchison's and Barton's home state. Texas' two largest television
markets, Dallas-Fort-Worth and Houston, are both among the five
worst-prepared markets in the nation, according to the Nielsen numbers.
Texas' Rio Grande Valley also reports especially large over-the-air
reliance; Hutchison introduced legislation in 2007 to delay the
transition for border-area stations.
As previously reported in TV Technology, there are plenty of practical
and technical difficulties in any potential delay.
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