FCC Would Mandate Low-Power DTV Switch in 2015
Analog broadcast TV in the U.S. will be a thing of the past in late 2015 if the FCC succeeds in setting a low-power station digital deadline akin to the full-power DTV switch two years ago, commission officials said. They said a draft order would require all remaining low-power stations that haven’t already made the digital switch to do so by September 2015. That’s three years later than the commission last proposed (CD Sept 21 p2).
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The order is said to note that the new date accounts for the repacking of full-power broadcast channels the agency envisions doing as part of auctioning other channels for wireless broadband, should stations agree to participate and Congress approve legislation. The portion of the 700 MHz spectrum that the commission auctioned to wireless carriers in 2008 would need to be vacated by low-power stations by the end of this year, FCC officials said. The Media Bureau order circulated June 6. It’s drawn no lobbying and little commissioner attention so far, agency officials said. The last filing in docket 03-185 was made in March.
Some low-power stations, which usually lack the viewership and thus the ad income of their full-power counterparts, likely won’t have money to buy new equipment and pay construction costs for DTV, said an engineer and an industry lawyer. The draft gives low-power stations until 2015 to make the move, instead of 2012 as proposed in a rulemaking notice last year. Stations could seek a six-month delay under the order, citing financial hardship, an FCC official said. Waivers could be hard to get, however, agency and industry officials predicted. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the draft.
There are several hundred stations that would need to move this year, because they're licensed to transmit on Channels 52-69 and would need to move by Dec. 31 under the draft, agency and industry officials said. They said that few of those appear to be the Class A stations that are full-service outlets transmitting at lower power levels. Many may be translator stations, which rebroadcast the programming of other outlets, often to rural areas, said TV lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald. A bureau official estimated at a conference last month of the National Translator Association that there are about 600 low-power stations operating out-of-core on the higher channels that sit in the 700 MHz band. About half of those stations have already sought new channel assignments in slots at 51 or lower, the official said in May.
Out-of-core stations have been on notice for some time that they'll need to request construction permits to broadcast on Channels 2-51, instead of 52 and above as part of spectrum that’s been auctioned to carriers, FCC and industry officials noted. The draft order also makes mention of that, an agency official said. The draft is said to say that the transition for all other low-power stations should happen in 2015, so they must change channels and go digital only once, rather than move channels soon because of a repacking of the band and then later go digital. The order doesn’t address whether low-power stations can participate in the voluntary incentive auction FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski hopes to get authority to hold, to free up 120 MHz of TV spectrum for mobile broadband, a commission official said.
Consumer education will be an important aspect of the low-power switch to digital, the draft is said to note. For viewers of low-power stations who have digital converter boxes, they'd need to rescan the channels to get those broadcasters in DTV, said Vice President Richard Mertz of TV engineering firm Cavell Mertz. For the stations, such switches will involve much time and money, and some may not be able to afford it and will go off-air, he and Tannewald said. “For those who are remaining in analog, I don’t know why they are doing it,” Tannenwald said.
Requiring those stations to switch off analog in 2015 may very well not “mess up anybody -- it’s not clear to me that that timetable is ahead of the timetable where the market is going to drive everybody,” Tannenwald said. “The market is driving that transition that quickly anyway, with or without a regulatory deadline.” If the industry “needs a little push, fine,” said Tannenwald. “The problem would be if they kicked them in the teeth,” he said of the FCC and its order, which he hasn’t read or been briefed on.
It will cost $100,000 to $300,000 for equipment and engineering help and to pay for construction to change low-power channels and broadcast in digital, Mertz estimated. He said the biggest costs are for a new transmitter and antenna. For stations in sparsely populated places, finding vacant frequencies to move to shouldn’t be tough, and in larger cities that will be harder, Mertz said. “In a rural area, you're probably just fine, but in the population centers it’s more likely you are going to have to look a bit,” he said. “They have to find spectrum within the core, and in some areas they may not find anything. It may take a lot of work and in some areas a site change.”