FCC Members, Panelists Left Out of DTV Contracting Decision

Some commissioners wish they had been more involved in setting strategy for how the FCC would parcel out money to nonprofits and other groups to help consumers hook up digital converter boxes and to answer questions on getting through the transition, commission officials said. Several said FCC members hadn’t been asked for suggestions on grassroots education, the aim of the awards unveiled this week. Some officials said they believe that commissioners could have been involved in the process without violating federal contracting rules. The rules probably allow Martin to discuss strategy for contracts at least internally, an official said.

An FCC spokeswoman said commissioners didn’t take part in discussions about DTV contracts, but that’s not unusual. “Typically other commissioners are not involved in the contract process,” she said. “We do contracts all the time and involvement is usually limited.” The goal is to keep the contracting process “as open, as competitive as possible and to make sure all candidates or companies or organizations interested in bidding are treated equally,” the spokeswoman said. She said she didn’t know whether Martin was involved.

Commissioners also have been left waiting for information they sought on how many calls the FCC handled after a Dec. 17 simulated cutoff of analog signals by broadcasters nationwide, commission officials said. The number of calls the FCC can handle has worried some at the commission and on Capitol Hill, with up to 2 million calls to the commission, broadcasters and others expected Feb. 18, an FCC official said. Several other FCC officials who the spokeswoman asked about call-center data said they didn’t remember getting any commissioner request for the information, she said.

The FCC will soon release as usual short summaries of the contracts announced Tuesday on the Web site of the Office of Managing Director, the agency spokeswoman said. The information will list recipients and dollar amounts, she said. But additional details aren’t immediately available beyond the four-page FCC news release, commission officials said. The contracting officer overseeing the project asked us to file a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of the contracts, saying that was the only way to get the information. We filed one Wednesday.

PinTech Corp. was the largest recipient of the DTV contracts, getting an order worth $2.8 million to help seniors, the poor and others in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, the FCC said. The second- largest recipient was the AARP, which will get up to $2.7 million to help older viewers get digital broadcasts by fielding calls from them. Communications Services for the Deaf was awarded $1.1 million to give people with hearing problems information on getting and installing digital converter boxes. Hispanic Information and Telecommunications Network, a cable channel, stands to get a maximum of just over $750,000 to run walk-in centers in the 20 U.S. cities with the largest Hispanic populations, the commission said. Officials at those groups didn’t immediately have copies of the contracts available to provide to us or didn’t return messages.

Many other recipients are public broadcasters. WXXI Public Broadcasting, Rochester, N.Y., and the Iowa Public Broadcasting Board each will get more than $200,000. The IPBB contract isn’t public because the organization hasn’t signed it yet, said a spokeswoman. “We are reviewing it right now,” she said. “We have a pretty substantial digital TV education effort here in Iowa” and will spend at least half the money for a phone bank to handle calls immediately after the analog cutoff, she said. Officials at WXXI didn’t reply to messages seeking comment. Other recipients include Wisconsin Public Television, Ohio State University and the Knox County CAC, serving an area that includes Nashville. The NAB believes that the efforts of contract recipients, along with the members of the DTV Transition Coalition, will “help provide valuable boots-on-the-ground support to viewers who most need it as we approach Feb. 17,” said a spokesman.

The awards are the fruits of a request for contracts made Sept. 15 (CD Oct 9 p2) for help with the 82 markets with the highest portion of over-the-air viewers, Martin said in a written statement. Organizations picked will serve those most at risk of not receiving DTV, he added. “Following federal procurement practices, the Commission conducted a full and open competition” and sent copies of procurement documents to dozens of organizations, said Martin. “In addition, the Commission’s Consumer Advisory Committee worked to ensure that all of the potentially impacted communities were aware of the request for proposals.”

Three members of the committee said they would have liked to participate more and their involvement was limited to seeking, and getting, more time for would-be contractors to apply to the FCC. “We certainly spread the word” so groups could apply, “but it was a little bit painful because it came so late in the process,” said Paul Schlaver, until year-end the chairman of the advisory committee’s DTV subcommittee. “We talked about trying to get funding for local groups months earlier, and it didn’t get much response and all of a sudden they announced there would be this grant process,” said Schlaver, who’s no longer on the Consumer Advisory Committee. “Ideally an advisory group should be listened to” -- but that didn’t seem to happen much, he said. “We thought we did what the committee asked for, we extended the time for responses, and we ran an open contracting process,” said the FCC spokeswoman. “We were not aware that any requests were made that we didn’t meet or respond to.”

Two current committee members made similar comments. “I really feel frustrated that the FCC has not been more responsive to our work, to our recommendations” on DTV and other issues, said Benton Foundation Chairman Charles Benton, who helped lead the DTV subcommittee. Benton was puzzled that the FCC didn’t make the awards in the fall, as initial responses to the commission’s requests for contractors were due in October, he said. “Three months later, with the DTV transition happening less than five weeks from now, they announce the awarding of these grants. What the hell is going on?” Consumer Action Executive Director Ken McEldowney, a Consumer Advisory Committee member, said the contracts come too late. “I am totally baffled as to how these groups are going to be able to do $8 million of work in one month. In other words, too little, too late.”