FCC Chief Turns Up Heat on Broadcasters

The nation’s top media regulator warned television broadcasters Tuesday that they risked a congressional crackdown if they resisted plans to convert to digital TV by 2006.

Turning up the heat on TV station owners gathered here for the National Assn. of Broadcasters convention, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell urged them to embrace an FCC proposal that would require broadcasters to air only digital TV channels by 2009 and return their analog airwaves to the government.

Powell said a ballooning federal budget deficit could prompt lawmakers to confiscate broadcasters’ analog airwaves, which experts say could fetch $70 billion or more if sold to other communication providers such as cellular telephone companies or video satellite providers.

Most broadcasters air programming in both analog and digital formats, but they are waiting until more households are equipped with digital TV sets before switching to only digital broadcasts -- as required by federal law.

“We made a commitment to advance this transition and complete it,” Powell told the standing-room-only audience. He said the FCC plan should be seen “in light of even more dangerous things to come. I don’t think you have 50 more years of government willingness to allow this spectrum to be used just for this purpose.”

Powell also said he hoped Congress would preserve the FCC’s flexibility to deal with indecency complaints on a case-by-case basis, but told broadcasters that he was bound as FCC chairman to enforce whatever laws are on the books.

“I don’t think you should reduce something as facile and vague as indecency to clear cause-and-effect consequences,” Powell said, referring to legislation in the House and Senate that would raise fines on broadcasters for airing indecent content. “I have seen stuff that I cannot in good conscience stand up before the public and say, ‘yes this is OK’ ... [but] I would be in dereliction of my duty if I took the position that I had a different view of the 1st Amendment” and indecency than held by the Supreme Court.

Observers said Powell’s comments on digital TV signaled a growing determination on the part of the Bush administration to phase out analog television broadcasts to try to boost the economy by stimulating consumer demand for new digital TV products.

About 1,100 of the nation’s 1,700 television stations have switched to digital. But as recently as January, even Powell expressed pessimism about the industry’s ability to meet its 2006 deadline.

The FCC plan would move the process along by counting TV channels carried by cable as digital even if cable operators converted the digital TV signals to inferior quality analog channels. Experts say most cable operators are likely to continue to deliver analog channels to their customers for the foreseeable future to avoid angering subscribers unwilling or unable to upgrade their analog TVs to more costly digital sets.