Congress Puts 2 DTV Funding Items in Resolution

“Everyone knows the legislative package will have important implications,” and all parties are working toward a quick resolution, Baker said. “NTIA wants to be as prepared as possible to maximize consumer participation in the coupon program,” she added. Broadcast stations could help by stocking converters for donation to viewers late to deal with the analog cutoff, she said. “I'm certain that a donated converter box with a station logo on it will go a long way to securing viewer loyalty,” she said.

Congressional appropriators met over the weekend to hammer out details of what to include in the continuing resolution. The measure, which must pass by Sept. 30, is expected to fund the government through mid-November. That could mean a lame-duck session. “Key Appropriations Committee members and congressional leadership signaled their intention to address” funding for FCC consumer education and NTIA processing of additional coupons, said David Taylor of Capitol Solutions.

Other DTV bills likely will fall by the wayside for lack of time left in this Congress, House and Senate telecom aides said at the conference. One proposed bill would allow TV stations to send analog signals after the Feb. 17 transition, but only to tell viewers how to buy and install converters. Some Wilmington, N.C., stations do so now, which policymakers thought a good idea to adopt nationally, aides said. But legal issues must be resolved since the government technically is relinquishing authority over the spectrum. A bill on the issue was pulled from a calendar released last week for a Tuesday House Commerce Committee markup.

That legislation is a “good idea,” said House Commerce Committee Senior Counsel Amy Levine. But “it’s very tricky to get anything done” this Congress, she said. “We are intrigued by this idea,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, Senate Commerce Committee senior communications counsel.

Another DTV-related measure (S-2507), passed in August by the Senate, would allow TV stations along the U.S. border with Mexico to continue analog broadcasts post-transition. But the House Commerce Committee isn’t convinced the proposal is a good idea. Delays in the transition along the border could leave no converters for people needing them when the switch finally comes, said Levine and minority counsel Neil Fried.

Nor are lawmakers likely to get NTIA to change its rules so people can reapply for coupons if those they have expired before they could redeem them. “NTIA said the statute wouldn’t let them do it,” Levine said. “It doesn’t seem likely that NTIA is going to change its rules,” Fried said. NTIA argued that this revision would make it difficult to run the program. “The benefit of expiration is that coupons can be recycled,” he said. “There is a real procrastination problem here. We don’t want everybody to wait until the last minute” to apply for coupons, he said.

Remaining DTV Issues

Learning from Wilmington, NTIA is changing its marketing for the coupon program to encourage viewers to buy and test boxes promptly, Baker said. “The new message is ‘Apply, buy and try,'” she said. “We're also emphasizing that the time to ‘apply, buy and try’ is now -- not January or February next year, but this year, before the end of the year.”

Meanwhile, FCC work on DTV issues won’t end with this Congress. A “clean-up” DTV rulemaking is in the works to deal with provisions on analog left in the TV rules, said Eloise Gore, associate chief of the FCC Media Bureau. And the media bureau is looking at imposing a quiet period for retransmission consent talks, she said, without saying whether to commission will take that up by rulemaking, notice or a notice of inquiry or other proceeding.

The commission is also looking at cases where a station’s signal coverage will change considerably with the DTV switch, said Michelle Carey, aide to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. “We're hoping to get a better understanding of the scope of the problem in the next few weeks,” she said. But a big focus of the commission is enforcing its consumer education DTV rules, Carey said. “The focus right now is to make sure that every entity is complying with our consumer education rules,” she said.

The Media Bureau has been dealing with technical matters related to the transition, having processed more than 600 applications from broadcasters to maximize their signals and coverage areas, said Clay Pendarvis, associate chief of the Media Bureau’s Video Division. More than half the orders processed have been granted, he said. The FCC expects to complete the rest before November, he said. To speed the process, broadcasters should respond quickly to information requests from the commission, he said. Such applications have already translated into requests for work on broadcast towers and transmitters, said Jay Adrick, Harris Corp. vice president of broadcast technology, and Don Doty, president of Stainless LLC. “Those orders will go in line after we've taken care of the necessary transition orders,” Adrick said. Tower crews will probably stay busy throughout 2009, Doty said. “We expected a surge leading up to February, but what we're now facing is a long list of projects into the summer and fall of 2009,” Doty said. Many of those involve maximization projects and removing analog antennas from towers so digital antennas can get the prime spaces, he said.

Coordinating soft cutoff tests -- when broadcasters simulate turning off their analog signal for a few minutes -- will continue to be important, several industry and government officials said. The NAB drew kudos for its efforts to keep others aware of those tests. It’s helpful for the FCC to know when they take place so the commission can prepare for the likely increase in calls to call centers, Gore said. Retailers also like being in the loop so they can make sure they're adequately stocked, said lawyer Robert Schwartz. Cable systems also need to be alerted when the test occur, especially those that receive broadcasters’ signal over the air rather than over fiber, said Bill Check, senior vice president of science and technology at the NCTA. Those systems can run into problems, because their viewers may mistakenly believe they need a converter box after seeing a soft test. “It’s important that the broadcasters have an announcement at the end that says ‘If you're a cable subscriber, this doesn’t really apply to you,” he said. -- Anne Veigle, Josh Wein

MSTV Notebook…

FCC commissioners would rather not step into retransmission consent negotiations between broadcasters and cable operators this year, their aides said, discussing a proposed “quiet period” during which talks would be on ice. “One idea is to put this out [for comments] so we can very quickly develop a record to flesh this out,” said Rick Chessen, aide to Commissioner Michael Copps. That way the FCC could learn “what we may expect to see this time that may be different from previous negotiations,” he said. But leaders of the broadcast and cable lobbies didn’t seem close to accord in a panel discussion after the aides spoke. NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow told the broadcasters that freezing carriage negotiations is in everyone’s interest. “Let’s just get through the transition,” he said. But NAB President David Rehr accused the cable industry of misrepresenting the issue. “This is not really about the DTV transition,” he said. It’s about leverage in those carriage negotiations, he said.

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Work on an industry standard for mobile DTV is set to pass a milestone this week when the Advanced TV Systems Committee subgroup in charge of the process is expected to approve the technology as a candidate standard, Ion Media CEO Brandon Burgess said. The subgroup will vote Thursday on the system, setting in motion eight months’ work that will produce a final ATSC standard, said Robert Rast, project leader of LG’s mobile DTV system, MPH. After that, the goal will be to persuade makers of transmission gear and receivers to embrace the standard, he said. LG, which plans to meet next week with transmission gear makers in Chicago, is working with CEA to coordinate a similar meeting soon among receiver makers, he said. “We want to have as many people interested in this project as possible and ultimately LG and Samsung agree with that because everyone operates on a scale economy,” Burgess said. Meanwhile, CE companies may decide to put mobile DTV receivers in stationary sets because they will be capable of picking up a much weaker digital signal, Rast said. “If you install this technology, you have a default case where you can at least get a picture at lower resolution,” rather than losing service altogether, he said.