Martin Takes FCC DTV Task Force out of Mothballs

Martin announced the resumption of the task force’s work at a Feb. 13 House Telecom Subcommittee hearing. Martin provided few details on the FCC task force, and his comments drew little notice. Lawmakers questioned him there about the advisability of an inter-agency DTV task force favored by many Democrats as a way to ensure a smooth transition. Such a group hasn’t been set up yet.

Media Bureau Chief Monica Desai leads the task force, she told a Federal Communications Bar Association DTV panel last Tuesday. Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Chief Cathy Seidel is co-chair, Desai said. DTV is among the FCC’s top priorities, she said, indicating that industry is doing a good job educating consumers. Desai and Seidel declined further comment. Martin told the subcommittee he revived the group at the suggestion of other commissioners. Desai and Seidel will “jointly lead an intra-agency task force of bureaus and offices who are primarily working to facilitate the DTV transition,” Martin testified.

The task force formalizes existing relationships between FCC offices and bureaus already working on the transition, a commission spokeswoman said. The group will meet regularly to reduce “the burdens on consumers while maximizing their opportunities to benefit” from DTV, she said. The task force will work with other federal agencies and “address any problems that arise or appear imminent,” she said. Members will speak with executives and federal, state, local and tribal government officials, the spokeswoman said.

The task force was created by Michael Powell, then the FCC chairman, in October 2001 “to help us set priorities” for the transition, Powell said then. Its head, Associate Media Bureau Chief Rick Chessen, now is an aide to Commissioner Michael Copps. After convening in 2001-2002, the group grew less active, and has done little in recent years, agency officials said. But it’s unclear if the task force ever officially closed shop, they said.

The revived body likely will have a similar priority- setting function, but commissioners are waiting to hear more about it, officials said. The task force’s chief job is to coordinate transition planning at the FCC and work with NTIA and other federal agencies on consumer education, an FCC official said. For instance, the group will help the Department of Health and Human Services post DTV fliers in health clinics and will work with states and cities on education, the official said. The group’s goals may be outlined in the text of a DTV consumer education order recently approved 5-0 (CD Feb 21 p5). If the order doesn’t shed light on the task force, at least one commissioner may issue a partial dissent or a concurrence to it, said a source.

Some of the same commissioners who want Martin to address the task force’s mission in the order also want that document to declare that the FCC will report to Congress on the digital transition, said officials. Other commissioners believe that’s unnecessary because the FCC committed in its third periodic DTV review to issue an August 2008 progress report on the transition, said agency officials. Martin’s testimony to the House Telecommunications Subcommittee amounted to an oral update to Congress, said an agency source.

Rechartering the task force will help inform people of the transition, said Paul Schlaver, chairman of the DTV subcommittee of the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee. “It will help a lot,” he added. “I would like to know more about it.” But the FCC must do more to coordinate public and private DTV education, he said. “Right now it just seems as if it’s a bit of a patchwork quilt.”