WITH DIGITAL DEADLINE LOOMING, SOME ASK FOR DELAY ON SIMULCAST
Most broadcasters are expected to begin simulcasting 50% of their analog programming in digital if they have not already started to do so by Tues., meeting an FCC deadline, industry officials told us. However, the NAB is opposed to the rule, saying it is an onerous burden on broadcasters, especially since their digital signals for the most part aren’t assured of carriage on cable systems, which deliver programming to a majority of U.S. households. Without carriage, the digital signals are of little use and a waste of broadcasters’ money, the NAB says, since few consumers have the equipment to get digital over the air. The NAB board has a teleconference call Tues. to discuss the deadline. Asked whether the broadcasters expected to succeed in pushing back the deadline, an industry source said, “I don’t think anybody envisions it being stopped.” Meanwhile, Paxson and the Assn. of Public TV Stations asked the FCC to grant waivers that would allow them to bypass the deadline.
Paxson, the largest owner of DTV stations in the country, said its “continuing inability to secure cable carriage” and the uncertainty about the digital TV transition prompted its decision to seek a temporary, 1-year waiver (CD March 21 p11). Paxson pointed out that the FCC had a rulemaking pending that would decide the question of mandatory cable carriage and said it would be unfair to make stations begin simulcasting when the rules are unclear. The company also cited the low level of consumer adoption of digital as another reason to put off simulcasting. However, Paxson was expected to comply, as it was unclear whether the FCC would act on its petition before Tues.
An FCC official said the petitions by Paxson and the public broadcasters were under review. Asked whether stations would be penalized if they didn’t comply with the deadline, she said: “Our first priority is not to figure out how to penalize people, it’s to work with the stations and help them come into compliance with these deadlines.” After the 50% deadline, under the FCC rule, stations must begin simulcasting 75% of their programming by April 2004 and 100% by April 2005.
Public TV stations actually face 2 deadlines -- April 1 for simulcasting and May 1 to begin converting at least some programming into digital. The public stations say they have been too busy focusing on construction and meeting the May 1 deadline to begin addressing programming. The Assn. of Public TV Stations (APTS), like Paxson, has sought temporary relief from the simulcasting requirements, although it wasn’t specific on when it believed public broadcasters should begin simulcasting.
APTS pointed out that commercial stations have had a minimum of 11 months between their conversion deadline and the start of the simulcast requirements, allowing them to focus their efforts initially on acquisition and installation of transmission equipment to meet their construction deadlines and then acquiring and installing facilities for encoding and interconnection. “The construction and simulcasting deadlines for NCE [noncommercial educational] stations,” APTS said, and “on the other hand, have essentially merged, requiring NCE DT stations to focus on both transmission systems and encoding and STL systems at once. This has been an impossible task for many NCE stations.” About 107 of the 357 PTV stations already have converted to digital and a substantial majority will be on the air with a digital signal by the deadline, APTS said. But many PTV stations that have converted wouldn’t be able to comply with the simulcasting requirements for some time, it said.
In some cases, that’s because the necessary studio- transmitter link (STL) or other digital interconnection facilities between their studios and transmitters aren’t yet in place, APTS said, although DTV stations can receive and broadcast PBS or other digital programming with temporary satellite dishes located at their transmitters. In other cases, PTV stations haven’t had encoding equipment for digitizing programming delivered or installed, it said.
APTS sought relief for all PTV stations to obviate the need for each station to file and the FCC to process individual waiver requests. APTS said that the Commission had noted in its rulemaking that simulcasting might create disincentives for innovative DTV programming and that the marketplace itself was likely to create incentives for simulcasting that would make regulatory requirements unnecessary. Given the difficulties PTV stations faced in having to comply with both their construction and simulcasting obligations, and considering that the FCC was “reevaluating” the simulcasting requirements, APTS said the Commission should suspend the requirements temporarily.