DBS May Get More Time to Meet FCC HD Carriage Mandate
FCC commissioners seem willing to give DirecTV and EchoStar more time than a draft order proposes to carry all TV stations in high definition in every market they serve, commission officials said. An order that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated Feb. 6 would require satellite-TV providers by February 2009 to carry all of a market’s stations in HD if they distribute any (CD Feb 21 p2), agency officials said. In meetings last week, DirecTV and EchoStar executives told FCC members and their aides of challenges to meeting that requirement, ex-parte filings show.
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Satellite-TV providers need until 2013 “to satisfy new rules,” said a handout discussed in a phone call between EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen and Martin. Ergen also spoke with Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps. “Dish Network is at capacity today,” the handout said. “Virtually all national transponders and spot beam transponders are fully loaded.” An FCC spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment right away.
DirecTV and EchoStar proposed to provide by February 2010 HD to 15 percent of markets where they carry the signals of TV stations, a percentage they propose to double by February 2011, they said Feb. 15 in a joint filing. In 2012, the companies would be providing HD signals in 60 percent of markets, they said. A plan that would give the companies additional time won support Tuesday from Windstream, which sells EchoStar’s Dish Network service to its rural phone customers. “The FCC should consider an approach that does not require a flash cut to 100 percent HD must carry in 2009, but rather establishes a later date certain by which” to do so, said Windstream’s filing. “Adopting a reasonable transition schedule would encourage satellite providers to speed deployment of HD services, while avoiding any unnecessary carriage interruptions.”
Some commissioners are willing to give DirecTV and EchoStar additional time to meet the digital carry-one, carry-all requirement, agency officials said. But it’s unclear whether the companies will get until 2013 to get into compliance because Martin hasn’t revised the order to reflect the DBS providers’ proposal, they said. At least some commissioners seem inclined to give DirecTV and EchoStar at least some of the additional time they seek, commission sources said. Meeting Feb. 21 with an aide to Martin, a DirecTV executive “stressed the time needed to design and deploy ground infrastructure necessary for such carriage,” said an ex parte filing.
NAB wants the FCC to require both DBS providers to carry signals of every TV station in all 210 markets, said ex partes on eighth-floor meetings. DirecTV and EchoStar now must distribute analog signals of every station in markets where they carry any broadcaster. Martin’s order would extend that requirement to digital signals but not force DBS to carry broadcasters in all 210 markets, a commission official said. NAB representatives told aides to Commissioners Michael Copps and Robert McDowell of “the importance to the digital transition of DBS operators carrying broadcasters’ high-definition signals,” said summaries of Feb. 13 meetings. NAB officials met last week with an aide to Commissioner Deborah Tate to argue that DBS operators should provide the signals of every TV station in 210 markets, said an ex parte filing. “We urged the commission to make sure that the DBS operators’ claims of capacity constraints were factually supported,” it said.
Commissioners haven’t yet proposed changes to Martin’s draft of the order, said FCC officials. But when they do, some commissioners likely will ask Martin to require the DBS operators to eventually distribute the signals by satellite of broadcasters in all 210 markets, said an agency source. Such a provision would address broadcasters’ concerns, said the official. “NAB’s position is that it is critically important to have HD carriage of local broadcast stations sooner rather than later,” said a spokesman for the group.