NAB’s arguments against EchoStar’s digital white area proposal ar...

to grant DBS operators waivers to provide distant digital signals to viewers in DMAs where local stations weren’t providing digital signals as far as their Grade B contours. A 3-month grace period would be allowed for low-power DTV stations to upgrade. NAB told the Commission in March that EchoStar’s proposal was “palpable nonsense” (CD March 25 p13). In a letter, EchoStar noted NAB didn’t say the Commission doesn’t have the authority to require the waivers, but argues there isn’t a problem: “NAB remains willfully blind to the fact that a significant number of viewing households (as of Feb. 2004, all except 17 out of 210 markets) still lack access to a full complement of full-power digital broadcasts from the networks servicing their areas.” Instead of providing a solution for providing digital signals, NAB “seeks to turn the Commission’s attention to NAB’s own demands for digital mandatory carriage by cable and satellite systems… And it is again characteristic that NAB members, having received spectrum worth tens of billions of dollars in exchange for their promise to provide DTV service, are now seeking to abdicate their end of the bargain and have someone else -- the satellite and cable industries -- shoulder it,” EchoStar said. While NAB draws similarities between the digital white area proposal and the “1999 distant signal importation episode” where distant analog signal subscribers lost the signal after becoming ineligible, EchoStar said this situation would be completely different. DBS operators would only provide the digital feeds until a licensee builds its DTV facility, after which no new households can receive the distant signals, but the operators can continue to provide the signals already being delivered, EchoStar said.