All Other Commissioners Balk at Martin’s Low-Power TV Plan
All the other FCC commissioners balked at a plan by Chairman Kevin Martin (CD Feb 12 p2) that would pave the way for hundreds of low-power broadcasters to demand carriage on cable systems and would set an analog cutoff date for the stations, commission officials said. Martin told reporters early this month he had circulated a rulemaking notice for a vote by Tuesday that would have tentatively decided the approximately 500 Class A low-power stations should get “at the front of the line” to apply for full-power licenses. Licensees get must-carry rights, among other things, he said then.
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But no vote was taken on the notice, because Martin changed the date for the monthly FCC meeting to have been held Tuesday. Martin instead held it Monday, offering no items for a vote and combining it with a field hearing in Cambridge, Mass., on broadband network-management practices. Some commission officials believe Martin dropped his plan to have six media and wireless items voted on at the February meeting because he didn’t have the votes for the low-power notice. The notice proposed a 2012 digital transition deadline for all of the several thousand low-power stations and translators, Martin said Feb. 8. An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment.
The other commissioners signaled to Martin that they wouldn’t approve the notice after it was circulated on the FCC’s top floor Feb. 6, commission officials said. Some commissioners are said to oppose provisions of the notice that would clear a path for the commission to impose further must-carry obligations on cable operators. To become a final rule, commissioners would need to approve the notice, seek public comment on it and approve an order. Martin’s draft version of the notice isn’t going anywhere for now, an FCC official said.
Some commissioners also think it’s the wrong time to complete the details for low power’s digital transition because those broadcasters can switch to DTV now without rules, said two FCC officials. “There’s been this feeling of ‘well, LPTV has the tools in its toolbox to either go digital and/or educate their own viewers'” that they need DTV converter boxes that pass through analog signals to keep getting the broadcasts after Feb. 17, 2009, an official said. “At this late stage, there might be other ways to address the issue other than through must-carry mandates,” which cable operators could sue the FCC over, the official said. Several commissioners seem concerned about the legality of must-carry mandates, FCC sources said.
Cable operators continue to oppose the must-carry part of the notice. In Feb. 19 meetings with aides to Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein, Michael Copps and Robert McDowell, Charter officials said it’s not clear that the FCC has congressional authority to expand must-carry rules to low-power TV stations. “The commission has recently drastically reduced the prices for commercial leased access to provide a nearly free carriage path specifically requested by LPTV broadcasters,” said an ex parte filing on the meetings. “Rather than seeking to give away full power broadcast spectrum and more cable capacity for free, the commission should be focusing on correcting any flaw in digital to analog converters.”
The NCTA continues to believe the FCC shouldn’t let low power stations demand carriage, said a spokesman. But the broadcasters need pay-TV carriage to prosper, said attorney Peter Tannenwald, representing the Community Broadcasters Association. “We agree with the chairman that without multichannel carriage a business model is very difficult.”
The four other commissioners also have asked Martin to specify the mission of an FCC task force on the digital transition (CD Feb 26 p5) in a coming order on DTV consumer education, a commission official said. Martin is considering the request, the official said. The group will be the FCC’s main point of contact for DTV inquiries from other agencies, states and cities, and industry, commission officials said. But commissioners want more information on the scope of the task force’s work, an official said. They haven’t gotten details like that in eighth-floor briefings on the group’s purpose, officials said.