Pubcasters to Lobby for Digital Programming, DTV Education
More than 200 public TV executives will spend Feb. 13-14 lobbying Congress to spend more on digital content and warning viewers of the analog shut-off. With their infrastructure now digital, public stations want more federal money for digital content, Assn. of Public TV Stations (APTS) Pres. John Lawson told us in a briefing on APTS Capitol Hill Day.
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Passage of continuing resolution would complete the financing of PBS’s new interconnection system and most of public TV’s infrastructure conversion, Lawson said. The CPB used some digital conversion money to support production of digital content, he said: “We will ask Congress to continue that practice over time and invest a greater percentage of funds in content rather than equipment.”
Citing APTS data showing 61% of Americans don’t know of the DTV transition and 53% don’t realize analog transmission will cease in Feb. 2009, the public TV group wants Congress to put more money into consumer outreach. APTS expects Congress to review the DTV transition and “we hope that they will increase funding for consumer education,” said Lawson. With 21 million over-the-air households known to be “heavy” public TV viewers, public broadcasters are in a “strong position” to alert consumers to the transition, he said: “We need a public awareness effort comparable to the campaign in the 1990s to phase out leaded gasoline.”
Public broadcasters wanted $86 million for DTV consumer education, but APTS and coalition partners, including CEA and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, will compete for the $5 million Congress did dedicate, Lawson said. Public broadcasters haven’t decided on how much more money to seek from Congress for DTV education; a sum will emerge once the NTIA lays out its coupon subsidy plan, he said. Public TV could tap the $100 million allocated for NTIA to administer the coupon program, he said: “If NTIA allows some of that to be used for marketing, that certainly factors into what we would require for our consumer education efforts.”
With Democrats controlling Congress, “we see new options opening for us regarding policy and how public television can be embraced as a solution to some of the challenges facing the country,” Lawson said. The Democrats historically been more willing to consider public broadcasters “part of the solution to meet unmet needs in our society,” he added. APTS may seek a bill to get satellite carriage of public TV digital programs, Lawson said, declining to provide details. “We are continuing discussions with DirecTV and were recently approached by EchoStar to discuss carriage options,” he said.
Public broadcasters haven’t finished determining the FY 2008 federal financing they will pursue, Lawson said. There are no plans to seek a CPB reauthorization bill this year, and “we have no indication that the commerce committees are interested in making that a priority,” he said. Dept. of Homeland Security-certified digital emergency alert system gear will begin shipping to public stations in the spring (CD July 13 p5), Lawson said, with full deployment expected by Dec. APTS will push legislation to let governors, mayors, county executives and other local managers to interconnect to the system, now accessible only by the President.