Dish in Talks to Carry More Public Stations in HD, APTS and PBS Say
Dish Network is discussing expanding carriage of public TV stations’ HD signals, according to the Public Broadcast System and the Association for Public Television Stations. An FCC filing Friday on video competition by the organizations said the association and Dish are “in renewed discussions” for the company to carry public TV stations’ multicast programming. Broadcast lawyers not involved in the negotiations said the carriage would help PBS affiliates add viewers and perhaps donations. PBS faces increasing financial obstacles (CD Sept 2 p12).
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.
Dish carries commercial broadcasters’ HD signals in 152 markets but local HD content from public TV stations only in Alaska and Hawaii, where DBS providers are required to by Congress, said APTS and PBS. In late August, for example, Dish began offering the HD signals of Big Four broadcast network affiliates in Columbus-Tupelo, Miss. -- ranked the 133rd-largest U.S. TV market by Nielsen, the groups said: “But it did not add the HD channel of the local public television station.”
APTS and Dish “are discussing creative solutions” to “provide viewers with more locally produced public television content while still respecting” the company’s “capacity concerns,” the filing said. “We are hopeful that these discussions will continue and that we will soon be able to update the record in this proceeding with word of an accord.” Representatives of APTS and PBS declined to elaborate on the filing.
A deal could be similar to one that DirecTV, APTS and PBS reached in 2008 in which DirecTV agreed to carry either the HD signal or two standard definition streams from all public TV stations in markets where the company carries local HD channels, the filing said. “APTS and PBS are cognizant of the direct broadcast satellite providers’ concerns about capacity limitations and worked with DIRECTV on creative solutions.” DBS executives have said their satellites’ capacity to carry local HD programming is limited.
While capacity restraints still prevent Dish from providing PBS HD broadcasts to all markets it serves, the company is figuring out how best to begin rolling out PBS HD where it carries commercial broadcasters in HD, as required by the FCC, said a Dish official. Being discussed are which places should get the service first and how to handle markets, like New York City, that have several public TV stations. By Feb. 17, 2010, Dish is required by the commission to carry HD broadcast stations in 15 percent of markets where it carries any station in that format.
Dish “carries more local PBS stations than any other multichannel video programming distributor,” Stanton Dodge, Dish general counsel, said in a statement. “We are also on schedule to meet the FCC’s HD benchmarks, which require DISH to carry PBS stations in HD by 2013 in all markets where we are launched in HD. Nevertheless, we are also in talks with APTS to figure out whether there is some way, given our capacity constraints, that we can accelerate that schedule.”
“Without comprehensive carriage on all multichannel video platforms, much of public televisions’ [sic] content and services are lost” to taxpayers who “invested” in public broadcasting, APTS and PBS said. Broadcast lawyers representing commercial TV stations agreed and said HD carriage could help increase viewer donations. APTS and PBS said they have agreements similar to the DirecTV deal with the American Cable Association, NCTA and Verizon.
“Public television has put a lot of effort into creating high definition programming and the types of high definition programming they have are particularly conducive” to be seen in HD, like nature and travel shows, said Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald. “Without high def they likely will have fewer viewers because the viewers will be disappointed in the quality of the picture.” With funding “the main concern of public stations these days,” HD “helps them to attract viewers,” said attorney Michael Berg. “If they can show strong audience ratings for their programming, that’s helpful in persuading Congress to allocate more funds for public broadcasting.”