CE Starting to Join Mobile DTV Push by Broadcasters, Gannett’s Lougee Says

The initial rollout of mobile DTV, now being broadcast on more than 100 stations in the U.S., was cited by broadcast executives including NAB CEO Gordon Smith as a reason why TV stations need their spectrum. “We are in the process of solving the chicken and egg problem that has been out there for some time” in terms of demand for mobile DTV and the extent it’s available, Lougee told the news conference at NAB headquarters. That will “prove to the consumer electronics industry that we are here,” with the technology already reaching a majority of TV viewers, he said.

Broadcasters need to do a better job of telling the public about their services, including that people can get TV for free terrestrially instead of from a subscription-video provider, Smith said. “Part of our challenge in broadcasting is re-informing the American people of their alternatives” for TV, he said. “Let me be a little bit self-critical of the broadcast industry: I think we've not told our story well enough. And I think we need to do a better job.” Pay-TV companies “are putting their money where their mouth is” on advertising their services, and “they've shaped this debate -- we are trying to reshape this debate” over the need for broadcasters to be paid by subscription-video companies for carriage, Smith said. “Broadcasters need to take as their line-item cost of doing business [as] reminding people you can hit a switch and a great news program comes on."

Smith noted that he’s threading the needle on spectrum auctions, given broadcasters aren’t of one mind on them. “Some in the broadcast industry clearly would like there to be no auction” but “I am playing in the realm of possibility” and understand there’s “momentum” behind such auctions, he said in Q-and-A. “It is right and fair and good public policy that Americans in all their diversity no matter their economics not be disenfranchised from … broadcasting."

The Future of TV Coalition also includes MHz Networks, Native American Public Telecommunications, Ion Media’s Qubo network and mobile DTV’s Open Mobile Video Coalition, the NAB said. “When you have to form a coalition to talk about your future, perhaps it suggests you don’t have one,” CTIA Vice President Jot Carpenter responded. The CEA “welcomes the coalition’s input into how we solve the nation’s looming spectrum shortage and supports the goal of ensuring American citizens have access to information from a variety of sources,” President Gary Shapiro said.

"As the broadcasters have urged, the incentive spectrum auctions proposals in Congress are entirely voluntary and would not preclude any new use of broadcast spectrum, such as mobile digital TV or wireless Internet services,” Shapiro continued. “Although broadcasters have never paid for the public spectrum they occupy, we believe the proposals will generously compensate the broadcasters who choose to participate in auctions. As Americans increasingly rely on their smartphones and tablets, it is important that the marketplace have a role in allocating the spectrum from areas it is barely used to those where it is necessary to allow consumers to have access to broadband wireless Internet.” A CEA spokesman had no comment on Lougee’s remarks on forthcoming mobile DTV deals with manufacturers.

"Mobile digital television is here,” said Lougee. More stations are being “lit up” to broadcast using the standard “literally by the day,” he added. The move toward mobile DTV began “before any of us heard about the National Broadband Plan” from the FCC, Lougee said. That plan sparked efforts to reallocate 120 MHz of TV spectrum for wireless broadband. An FCC spokesman declined to comment.

Multicasting was also cited as a reason for spectrum need by executives of companies whose programming targets niche audiences including blacks and Spanish-speakers. They included Andrew Young, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and mayor of Atlanta. Young and Vme Media President Carmen DeRienzo will meet with lawmakers on spectrum, they and NAB officials said. Those who see programming from Vme, which focuses on Hispanics, and Young’s Bounce TV, aimed at blacks, could be “disenfranchised” if the broadcast multicast spectrum those programmers and others use isn’t available because the frequencies are voluntarily auctioned, various speakers said.

Increasingly, “technophile” consumers in their 20s are turning to terrestrial TV, and buying antennas to get it, said Antennas Direct President Richard Schneider. It’s not just for the elderly or those without a lot of money, he said. Walmart recognized that, and “called us, because they are seeing the shift as well,” he said. Antennas Direct will have its gear at Walmart in the spring, with the store becoming “a destination for over-the-air and over-the-top” video transmitted initially online, he said. Walmart had no comment.

"Streaming video is causing a spectrum crunch in metropolitan markets” among carriers, Lougee said. That could be alleviated by TV stations transmitting point-to-multipoint Internet Protocol traffic like online video to wireless devices, instead of carriers using their spectrum to do so, he said. Low-power broadcasters have suggested a plan to offload such IP traffic to their stations, an idea carriers have been publicly cool to (CD Oct 21 p2). Instead of the spectrum “crisis,” claimed by some, there’s “a spectrum planning crisis” with a lot being “warehoused,” Smith told us. “It’s one thing to do an inventory of quantity,” but “quality” also needs to be taken into account, he continued. “Who has what and how are they using it? Is it for speculation? Or is it for deployment?”