FCC Commissioners Seek Openness on DTV, Worry about Box Supply

“Some say we won’t be ready on June 12th, either” and “it is true that this transition won’t be seamless,” said acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps. “Serious problems … for too long were minimized or wished away.”

“It’s important to be as open and transparent about this as possible,” since the DTV switch is a “work in progress,” Copps said. “We will have more meetings like this.” Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said the meeting was the first chance that FCC members had to discuss transition matters as a group with industry associations and other agencies. This is “the kind of openness we've been talking about, the kind of transparency we've been talking about,” he said. Commissioner Robert McDowell said, “We are beginning to open the doors and the windows into the process so that everyone can be well informed” about “the inevitable confusion this transition will bring.”

The “Washington blame game” ought to be avoided in dealing with the delay and participants should “close ranks” to tackle the issue together, McDowell said: “Many people will be left behind” regardless of when the cutoff takes place and “our mission is to ensure that that number is as small as possible … This transition will be messy regardless of when it happens.” Copps said “many consumers are not ready, the coupons are not available to them and they haven’t been adequately informed about why they have to prepare.” Given the “ink on the legislation is not even dry,” there are many details to be determined, both by the FCC and industry, he said. “Never have we required consumers to jump through so many hoops to pick up a broadcast signal.”

Adelstein said he’s “deeply concerned about whether there will be sufficient boxes on a national level.” He cited reports of possible shortages (CD Feb 5 p10). Adelstein said he wants to help “industry produce more and as soon as possible.”

In the CEA’s “worst case scenario,” digital converter box inventory will run out by month’s end, Michael Petricone, senior vice president of government affairs, said in prepared testimony given after our deadline. Should the NTIA “suddenly” issue all backlogged coupons, and 65 percent of them be redeemed, supply could run out sooner, he added. That assumes there are 3 million boxes available now, versus a “more likely scenario” of 6 million, he added. If that’s the case, existing inventory will run out just as newly-made boxes hit store shelves, Petricone said. New boxes should reach store shelves by mid-April, just as the current inventory may be running out, Petricone testified. But there may be a temporary box shortage in late February or early March.

Production of digital converter boxes seems to have ceased about a month ago, Petricone said. Although it usually takes more than 20 weeks from when a product is ordered until it’s on store shelves, production could be accelerated to reduce that lag to two months, he said, because the “severe economic crisis” has created “a virtually unprecedented level of excess manufacturing capacity.”

The NTIA’s Tony Wilhelm took several questions from Adelstein and McDowell about how long it will take it to resume sending out the $40 coupons once the Congress approves an economic stimulus bill that includes money for the purpose. More than 2 million homes seeking 3.7 million coupons are on the NTIA’s waiting list, said Wilhelm, the agency’s consumer education director.

“This list could be longer” when Congress makes money available for more coupons, Wilhelm said. It will take “several weeks to liquidate the current waiting list,” at the 1.5 to 2 million coupons that the NTIA can send weekly, Wilhelm said. But it has taken two to three weeks to process coupon requests, excluding time spent in the mail system, he added. With more money, the vouchers could be mailed first- class, he said, cutting delivery times.

By the end of next week, FCC staffers will have done viewer “outreach” on DTV in all 210 Nielsen TV markets, said Cathy Seidel, chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau. The efforts have raised viewers’ awareness, she added. With the transition delay, “clearly we don’t want every consumer to wait until June 12th,” Seidel said. “Part of the challenge will be making sure that our messaging is clear that our new deadline is June 12th” and telling consumers there’s “no downside to acting now,” she added. The FCC has expanded its call-center capacity, updating equipment and handling thousands of calls some days, said Chief Information Officer Andrew Martin.

Someone needs to make sure that each market is up to speed on DTV education, McDowell said. “Someone who has got ownership over each DMA and is going to be held accountable to get the broadcasters and all the third-party groups and civic groups to work together and get the job done,” he said. Adelstein agreed. No one is doing that, NAB President David Rehr said. It’s not a bad idea, but decisions must be based on empirical evidence, he said. “When we're making decisions that affect the entire nation, we have to look almost dispassionately at the data.”

Commissioners also want more-streamlined call centers. There should be smooth transfers between the NTIA’s coupon line and the FCC’s hotline, McDowell said. Adelstein said he'd like to see the numbers tied together, so callers to one could get information from both. The industry won’t know until Monday how many stations will go through with the analog cutoff Feb. 17, Rehr said. So far, 133 stations have turned off their analog signals, 60 plan to by the 17th, and 272 others have filed notices to do it that day, he said. “I think we'll know Monday in absolute terms what the number is.” That will help the federal government decide how to staff its call centers, said Martin, the FCC’s CIO. “That will help us model what may or may not be the likely scenario on the 17th.”