First-of-Kind PSIP Plan Would Have Stations Share Main Number, Use Different Subchannels

Cable operators that PMCM wants to be required to distribute must-carry station KVNV had sided with Meredith in opposing giving KVNV a PSIP channel of the desirably low 3, the same as its over-the-air location. Opponents of requiring operators to carry KVNV before the virtual-channel slot issue is worked out included Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, which got must-carry requests for the station, Ion, owner of WPXN-TV New York, which that broadcaster said shouldn’t be dislodged from its channel number, and Meredith. Operators might continue to oppose the plan in commenting to the FCC, though it appears to be a good technical solution, said broadcast lawyer Henry Gola after asking colleagues at Wiley Rein about the proposal.

Friday, the Media Bureau sought comment in docket 14-150 by Oct. 14, replies by Oct. 29, on the novel alternative virtual channel proposal (http://bit.ly/1qXjRwM). KVNV and WFSB, though in different markets with the first in New York and the second in Hartford/New Haven, overlap with signals in Fairfield County, Connecticut, said PMCM’s lawyer Don Evans of Fletcher Heald. The bureau’s public notice noted KVNV also has “significant contour overlap” with CBS’s KYW Philadelphia, which has virtual Channel 3 like WFSB.

PMCM’s novel idea is for Meredith to stick with channel 3.1 and derivations through 3.9 for multicast content, while KVNV would use 3.10 through 3.19. There are other instances of stations sharing the same PSIP in a market without any consumer complaints or technical problems, said Evans. He said that’s because every station has its own TSID number that is unique, and a combination of that number and PSIPs are used for TV receivers to identify stations.

Meredith had wanted KVNV to have virtual Channel 33 and reads the Advanced Television Systems Committee ATSC A/65 standard governing PSIPs differently from PMCM. Meredith also cited the case of another PMCM station that also made a court-ordered cross-country move, to Seaford, Delaware, and was assigned a PSIP before it went on-air and that was different from its on-air slot. PMCM’s solution could mean viewers would get a second screen choice after selecting Channel 3 to see WFSB, said Meredith. It said some receivers could prompt the viewer with something like “'Are you sure?'” when WFSB was first selected. “This signal choice matrix has far more potential to confuse viewers than a simple A/B switch,” which the FCC and courts have said shouldn’t be used in such situations, said the broadcaster. “By increasing the likelihood that viewers seeking WFSB would tune to KVNV(TV) in error, PMCM would appropriate the goodwill that WFSB(TV) has built up over many years -- precisely the result that adoption of the PSIP Standard was intended to avoid."

Meredith believes PMCM’s arguments continue to lack merit, and doesn’t support the first-of-a-kind PSIP proposal, said the first company’s lawyer, Michael Basile of Cooley. He said Meredith expects the FCC will find in his client’s favor.

Too Much Fuss?

Some don’t know what all the fuss is about, including those unaligned with either side, while a longtime broadcast lawyer said PMCM’s solution could further confuse viewers.

"It’s usually an uncontroversial thing to have a PSIP assigned,” said Evans. “I really don’t know why this has become such a tough thing for the commission to decide."

No broadcaster other than PMCM appears to have ever requested the same virtual channel as a separately owned station that has signal contour overlap, said a bureau spokeswoman. She said commonly owned noncommercial educational Virginia TV stations WNVT Goldvein and WNVC Fairfax use the same virtual channel of 30. Because ATSC A/65 allows for that scenario, the stations didn’t seek FCC OK for that arrangement, said the spokeswoman.

Some of the dispute between Meredith and PMCM turns on how ATSC A/65 is read. PMCM contended it’s meant to allow the sort of proposal it made, while Meredith said that isn’t envisioned. What the new station proposes could be read to be consistent with the standard, said ATSC President Mark Richer. “You can have the same major virtual channel number in a market as long as the minor numbers are different, so there is a way to differentiate them. That would make sense.” According to PMCM, one ATSC expert on the issue, whom we couldn’t reach for comment Monday, told the broadcaster that its reading of the standard was correct. That official, Richard Chernock, “himself suggested the very approach proposed here as a solution which would obviate any PSIP problem,” said PMCM.

Wiley Rein broadcast lawyers who reviewed the proposal said “it seems like a well thought-out solution,” according to Gola, who canvassed the lawyers at our request. “Absent” opposition from operators not wanting to carry a station in Channel 3, he said that “we see no reason why the PSIP standard wouldn’t be flexible enough to allow it, or why the commission wouldn’t waive the PSIP standard if it doesn’t allow it, to permit this solution.” PMCM’s solution is “creative,” Gola wrote in a Wiley Rein blog (http://bit.ly/1tXWQtD).

This dispute shows how the PSIP “elegant short-term solution” to how stations could keep their analog channel identities after switching frequencies in the 2009 move to DTV “would cause much confusion down the road,” said Pillsbury Winthrop TV station lawyer Scott Flick. WFSB seems to want “to preserve existing goodwill in its ’trademark’ channel,” while KVNV wants to use it “to secure a favorable cable channel position,” he emailed. Flick said PMCM’s plan “only adds to the confusion of PSIP, with the public being confused not just by ‘who’ channel 3 actually is, but by the fact that 3.1 and 3.10 are not even run by the same broadcaster.”