CONGRESS MEMBERS DON'T FORESEE HARD DATE FOR DTV TRANSITION

LAS VEGAS -- Several members of Congress at the NAB convention here expressed skepticism about a “hard date” for TV broadcasters to convert to a digital signal. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) said the cost of conversion for rural stations was about equal to the cost of conversion for urban stations, but smaller advertising revenue made it much harder to switch. “I'm not one that sees a hard date for conversion,” he said.

Rep. Terry (R-Neb.) said the only way to avoid a hard date was to prevent dual-carry requirements for cable operators. “The only way that could work out is if you don’t mandate dual-carry,” he said. “If you do, then you have to have a hard date.” Rep. Engel (D-N.Y.) said “99.9%” of the people in the U.S. didn’t know that Congress was even discussing a date to turn off analog broadcasting. “If we turn off the analog broadcast in 2006, it will be the end of our careers,” he said.

Rep. Green (R-Tex.) said the House Commerce Committee was likely to tackle other issues before approaching DTV. A spectrum relocation trust fund, followed by spam, were likely to be scheduled before the committee tackles DTV, Green said. Staffers for House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) have said an “Easter” introduction to a DTV bill was likely.

Burns said local-into-local TV transmissions on DBS was more-pressing issue than the transition to DTV. He said solutions to the local-into-local questions were needed before Congress could reauthorize the Satellite Home Viewing Act, which expires this year. “We're going to have to come up with some pretty solid ideas if we are going to reauthorize the act,” he said.

Both Burns and Engel said more market forces were needed to drive DTV and Green said cable operators must step up investments now that broadcasters have made their investments in DTV. “We need to get the digital hardware out there in mass quantity,” Engel said. Burns, referring to the costs for rural broadcasters, said: “This has to be somewhat market driven.” Terry said Congress was having a “hard time getting our arms around” the cable multicarry issue, saying the discussion remains largely academic.

Both Green and Terry said the Administration’s proposal for a $500 million spectrum tax for broadcasters who hadn’t moved from analog spectrum wasn’t likely to be passed. “I don’t want to see spectrum policy based on taxes,” Green said. He said spectrum jurisdiction was under the commerce committees, not congressional appropriators. “We'll spend more time arguing about the jurisdiction rather than the issue,” Burns said.

A proposal by Sen. Feingold (D-Wis.) to limit radio ownership isn’t likely to move either, Burns said. “Maybe it will make the calendar in 2010,” he said. “There’s not much traction on that bill now, and it’s not likely to see any in the next Congress either.” Engel said he wasn’t in favor of raising the 35% TV ownership cap, but said a slight raise in the cap could be warranted if it was accompanied by provisions that would encourage minority broadcasting ownership. But if the cap were raised too high, he said, “it could create some difficulty.” None of the Commerce Committee members here seemed to favor the FCC raising the cap to more than 50%, he said. “If they did that, there would be legislation,” he said: “People would be outraged.”

Both Burns and Sen. Coleman (R-Minn.) said Congress hadn’t adequately addressed Internet streaming issues. “We haven’t even focused on the problem,” Burns said, referring to the copyright issues that have shut down many Internet radio broadcasts. Coleman said “the lawyers” prevented his mother, who lives in Brooklyn, from listening to his radio broadcasts. “We have to get there,” he said, “but we haven’t figured out a way to get there yet.”

In a later panel, House Commerce Committee Counsel Jessica Wallace said broadcasters should show members of Congress their business plans for multicast must-carry for DTV broadcasts. She said Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) still was undecided on requiring cable operators to carry all of the channels that DTV broadcast could carry. “Broadcasters can make their case,” she said: “Show us how it will benefit consumers.” Gregg Rothschild, aide to Commerce ranking Democrat Dingell (Mich.), said lobbyists on DTV issues had only been speculating as to how the business would progress, so Congress had been cautious on the issue. “Technology changes so quickly, we're cautious that we might get it wrong,” he said, adding that an industry solution was preferred.

On media ownership, James Assey, counsel to Senate Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Hollings (S.C.) said Hollings had concerns about the FCC’s lack of transparency in its media ownership proceedings. “We don’t know where the FCC is going. It’s troubling to Senator Hollings,” he said, and Hollings will be closely following the media review issues in the coming months. Wallace said that Tauzin had been urging the FCC to finish its review by June and that the Commission had 12 studies on which to base a rulemaking. However, Rothschild questioned the models on which the FCC would base its decision, saying they didn’t take into account what would happen once media consolidation “inevitably” occurred.

Tribune Bcst. Pres. Patrick Mullen said he had concerns about the recent consumer electronics and cable industry agreement to create DTV plug-and-play. He said the agreement wouldn’t require that TV sets have DTV tuners built in and said that little attention had been paid to that issue. An owner of a Telemundo station on the Mexican border asked whether thought had been given to DTV conversion issues for border stations, which advertised to both Mexican and American audiences. He said those stations would have to keep analog transmission equipment for that reason. Bill Bailey, a Senate Commerce Committee aide, said he hadn’t considered the issue and wanted to learn more. When the panel was asked to predict when DTV conversion would begin, Bailey said: “With dual must-carry, not before 2006; without the must-carry, not before 2010.”