‘Specific’ DTV Transition Plan Needed, Hill Tells Martin, Baker
House telecom leaders anticipate a surge of activity as the DTV transition approaches, they said, and they sought answers from acting NTIA Administrator Meredith Baker and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on plans for the five months before the DTV switchover in February. Concern included how well NTIA will handle an anticipated increase in the number of requests for converter-box coupons. “We need a specific plan to get this surge of applications processed and out the door early, so consumers don’t wait a significant amount of time” to get their coupons, House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Baker. He asked for a detailed plan within 30 days and answers within 48 hours to a letter he and House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., had sent asking NTIA why it’s seeking an additional $7 million to run the coupon program.
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NTIA’s plans to deal with a surge of demand are unclear, said Mark Goldstein, the Government Accountability Office’s director of physical infrastructure and author of a report that was released Tuesday morning. The coupon program has been run well, but “NTIA’s ability to handle volatility in coupon demand without a plan in uncertain,” his submitted testimony said.
The questioning of Martin concentrated on the Wilmington, N.C., DTV test, how the FCC will respond to technical problems that it exposed, the need for a retransmission consent “quiet period,” whether federal call centers will be able to handle calls from viewers the day of the switchover and what to do about viewers who live in areas that might lose some service as broadcasters reduce power. Particularly troubling to Markey was the number of viewers who called the FCC’s hotline because they could no longer see the Wilmington NBC affiliate, WECT.
FCC engineers estimate that 15 percent of markets have at least one station whose coverage will shrink significantly with the switch to digital, Martin said. “I've told our engineering staff that this is the highest priority and really the number one lesson learned from the Wilmington experience,” Martin said.
Where viewers lose access to a station, the FCC may have to make sure that broadcasters fill the gaps, Martin told reporters outside the hearing room. “I think it’s important we work with the broadcasters to fill in all the holes,” he said, saying distributed transmission systems and broadcaster repeaters and translators could be used. Pressed to say whether the agency would require broadcasters to fill in the areas, Martin said “if it looks like the signals have changed significantly, then the commission would end up looking at it, if it needed to.”
Martin also faced questions about his support for imposing a quiet period on carriage negotiations between broadcasters and cable operators. He said he favors a quiet period window that’s centered on Feb. 17, starting and ending a few weeks before and after. Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said she thought the quiet period, when broadcasters couldn’t pull their signals from cable systems, should be much longer because of the NFL playoff season.
Meanwhile, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., also sought information from Baker and Martin in a letter sent ahead of a Senate DTV hearing next week. She wanted to know how the agencies are educating viewers about DTV reception issues. “Reports back from Wilmington … provide a warning that coverage and technical issues may be significant,” she wrote. -- Josh Wein
DTV Notebook…
A wide quiet period on retransmission consent negotiations this year will help a successful DTV switchover, cable industry officials said. Broadcasters are increasingly looking to get paid by cable operators for carriage and this year many contracts expire Dec. 31, NCTA President Kyle McSlarrow said. American Cable Association President Matt Polka praised the committee for paying attention to the issue. “The prudent course of action would be for the government to impose a quiet period that begins prior to the expiration of thousands of retransmission consent agreements,” Polka said in a news release distributed after the hearing.
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Border region broadcasters disagreed whether legislators should give them flexibility in making the switch to digital. Stations near the Mexico border may simply lose viewers to Mexican analog stations after the transition and American viewers can’t rely on Mexican stations for emergency alerts and information, said David Candelaria, Entravision general manager. But giving border stations another five years to switch to digital won’t fix anything, said John Kittleman, general manager of KRGV-TV Welasco, Texas. The transition will only be harder in five years, as border regions would be attempting to make it alone, and without the broad support of national retailers, cable operators and government agencies, he said. “Broadcasters will be left on their own with the massive task of education and equipping an unknown number of analog-only customers,” he said.