Broadcasters and consumer electronic companies are educating people about antennas and converter boxes needed to get digital TV as analog cutoff approaches for all U.S. full- power stations, industry officials said. Broadcasters said this month’s early analog cutoff in Wilmington, N.C., (CD Sept 10 p1) underscored the importance of telling viewers that they may need to buy new antennas or reposition current ones to receive DTV. The early transition in Wilmington, the only market set to go all digital before Feb. 17, also showed that consumers need to learn how to set up converter boxes, broadcast officials said.
On Sept. 17 full-power TV stations in North Carolina briefly will simulate an analog signal cutoff, broadcast executives said. All commercial stations in the state except the five in Wilmington that went digital-only Monday (CD Sept 9 p6) have been asked to participate, said North Carolina Association of Broadcasters President Hank Price. The “digital test” will occur sometime between 6 and 6:30 p.m., he told a Monday press event. A recent five-minute test by the Wilmington stations seemed to educate many viewers about DTV, Constance Knox, general manager of WILM Wilmington, said Tuesday in an interview.
Most TV viewers in the Wilmington, N.C., market seemed to make the digital transition successfully five months early on Monday (CD Sept 9 p6), said broadcast executives and civic-group officials. But hundreds of viewers called the FCC or the five stations that stopped analog programming seeking last-minute help, mostly with digital converter boxes and antennas, said station general managers. Although some stations got more inquiries than they had expected, employees and student volunteers helped solve about 75 percent of the problems, they said. Stations and pay-TV companies in the market said they had no technical problems making the switch at noon Monday.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is seeking votes on more than a dozen media items, many dealing with individual license transfers, by the Sept. 25 agenda meeting, he told reporters Friday. He’s also seeking votes on two orders that he said could help AM broadcasters. Martin also said an early switch to DTV in Wilmington, N.C., remains on, as a storm with winds near hurricane force approaches the city.
A tropical storm may delay Monday’s planned move to digital-only broadcasting by the five commercial stations in Wilmington, N.C., the first and perhaps only market to make an early transition from analog (CD Aug 28 p1). Officials at three stations there said the broadcasters will confer by phone Sunday morning to decide whether to stop regular programming in analog at noon Monday, a move announced by the FCC in May. The decision will be based on the extent of damage from tropical storm Hanna, which is headed for the area, they said.
The Bush administration is “worried” by recent FCC steps toward more regulation of the broadband, broadcast and cable industries, said Meredith Baker, acting NTIA administrator. Concern she felt earlier over an agency finding that Comcast network management discriminated against peer-to-peer file sharing (CD Aug 1 p1) has been reinforced by recent broadband developments, Baker said in an interview. Adding to her concern is an FCC rulemaking on unbundling programming that she said could violate First Amendment rights without increasing cable competition. A commission proposal to require more community service of radio and TV stations also could have unanticipated effects, she said.
Pay-TV providers lined up against supporters of some low-power stations getting must-carry status over whether the FCC should set the stage to require cable operators to distribute Class A stations. Replying Friday to a March rulemaking notice on diversity, the Community Broadcasters Association and 31 groups representing minorities said the FCC has power to give the stations must-carry status. Not so, said Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and the NCTA. Some comments cited limitations imposed in section 614(h)(2) of the Communications Act.
All but one full-power U.S. TV station are poised to be broadcasting in digital by the Feb. 17 analog cutoff, an FCC status report on the transition said. Among all stations, 1,797 have told the FCC in Form 387 filings (CD July 9 p13) or “unofficially reported” that they'll be ready for the DTV transition, said a Media Bureau report dated Aug. 18 but released late Wednesday.
Executives involved expect success in the Sept. 8 analog cutoff by Wilmington, N.C., stations CD Aug 28 p1). The five stations involved have aired dozens of stories on the cutoff, showing public service announcements at least 1,000 times, broadcast executives said. Representatives of consumer electronics stores we spoke with said they had plenty of digital converter boxes in stock. Some retailers in the area had shortages soon after the FCC announced that Wilmington would make the transition early (CD May 14 p4). It’s the only market doing that.
Mounting support for requiring cable and broadcast networks to be sold separately to pay-TV providers may prompt FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to seek a vote on such rules, said proponents and opponents of so-called wholesale unbundling. Martin has held off circulating an order (CD Aug 1 p6), which doesn’t appear to have been written yet by the Media Bureau, they said. But recent support for wholesale unbundling regulations from pay-TV companies, which Martin seems to have sought, may buttress his case for taking action, they said.