CONSUMERS BLAME FCC, INDUSTRY ON DTV TRANSITION; OTHERS DISAGREE

Broadcaster “mismanagement” is the main cause of the slow DTV transition, the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) said, and the “support and connivance” of the FCC helped “botch the transition to digital DTV.” Broadcasters and others were expected to file comments in the FCC rulemaking (9MB 03-15) at our deadline.

“Instead of producing programming,[broadcasters] have produced excuses,” the CFA said, “blaming equipment manufacturers, cable companies and content pirates.” It said the FCC “acquiesced in this charade, granting waivers, extending deadlines and, most recently, imposing additional costs on consumers of TV sets… The Commission rivals the industry in its foot dragging and mismanagement.” The CFA also said the FCC no longer should allow broadcasters to use low power for DTV, the broadcast flag violated the intent of Congress and the Commission should impose expanded public interest obligations on broadcasters.

Moving too fast to convert fully to DTV could mean millions of Americans won’t have access to free TV, according to a filing by 34 civil rights groups organized by the Minority Media & Telecom Council. Even if DTV set prices drop to $500 and converters to $300, “America faces the prospect of doing without universal television service for the first time since the 1950s,” the groups said. They said the FCC shouldn’t declare DTV ubiquitous, triggering the turnoff of analog TV, until DTV set prices decline “to the point where a person on a modest fixed income can afford it.” The filing also said broadcasters could fund vouchers to help the “truly needy” afford DTV sets, based on the delay in giving up their analog spectrum. The voucher system could be established through a “negotiated rulemaking” involving the FCC and the business parties, the civil rights groups said.

Meanwhile, LeSea Bcstg. said the cost of even “minimum build” DTV facilities was too high to be economically justified, “especially given the lack of digital receivers or converter technology.” The company, which operates 2 satellite stations, said a proposal to allow satellite stations to “flash-cut” to DTV at the end of the transition period “presents, for the first time, potential relief.”

Those who want the DTV spectrum, however, say the FCC should set a firm transition deadline. Three groups of rural telcos said “the uncertainty about the DTV transition is needlessly denying rural America the provision of affordable broadband services… Without such certainty, the mass-market economies of scale will not exist to support the development and availability of new product from equipment manufacturers at reasonable price levels.” The filing was by the KanOkla Telephone Assn., Peoples Telephone Co-op and Arctic Slope Telephone Assn. Co-op.