Administration Change Won’t Hinder FCC, NTIA DTV Efforts
Efforts to educate Americans who still don’t know what to do to get digital TV broadcasts won’t be hindered by the White House transition, federal officials said. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said that their agencies will keep their focus on DTV education during the shift. Each said he has no immediate plans to leave his job, but both were guarded about how long they'll stay and what they'll do afterward.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
A speaker at an event Monday marking the 100-day countdown to the digital transition voiced worry that the change in administration may hurt government educational outreach. “We are concerned about it,” said Mark Lloyd, vice president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. “There are some plans that need to be put in place.” The group has “reached out” to aides to President-elect Barack Obama about DTV, said Lloyd. He told us later he hopes Obama will speak publicly about it. “If anyone has a bully pulpit, it’s probably President-elect Obama” and it would be a plus if “he would step up,” Lloyd said. “We don’t think there is a unified approach” to the digital switch shared by the FCC, NTIA and others, he said.
Public and industry efforts on behalf of the digital transition are working, Gutierrez, Martin and cable and broadcast executives said, acknowledging that much work remains. “A lot of people will be taking action very late,” said NAB President David Rehr, calling the expected late surge in interest a big “challenge.” NCTA Executive Vice President James Assey said cable operators are prepared to send technicians to hook up cable in households that decide to make the digital transition by subscribing to pay TV. “Despite our best efforts, we know that many people will wait until late in the game” to decide how to get DTV, Assey said. Retailers’ “shelves are stocked” with digital converter boxes and “our staffs are trained,” said Chris McLean, executive director of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition. CEA President Gary Shapiro said “everyone is pulling in the same direction” and “we've done everything we can.”
President Bush’s goal of “the smoothest transition in history” between administrations bodes well for the analog cutoff, Gutierrez said. “You can be assured that right on the top of the list” of things he and others at Commerce will discuss with new administration officials will be DTV, added Gutierrez. “That is a key priority.” He and Martin said the analog cutoff shouldn’t be put off.
The FCC is a “bipartisan” agency able to handle the TV and leadership transition at the same time, Martin said. Commissioner Deborah Tate said broadcasters have various ways to promote a successful transition, including using distributed transmission systems approved last week by the FCC.