Broadcasters Seek to Delay Digital TV

Backed by powerful allies in Congress, the nation’s broadcasters are pressuring federal regulators to relax a government-mandated transition to digital television in May.

The National Assn. of Broadcasters met twice with Federal Communications Commission officials this month, seeking a simplified way to obtain exemptions to the agency’s May 2001 digital TV deadline. The NAB told the FCC that only about 200 of the nation’s 1,600 TV stations have made the transition to digital.

The association also has sought to cut back existing digital broadcasts, claiming they can cost TV stations $10,000 a month in electricity even though few consumers have the digital TV sets necessary to take advantage of digital’s sharper pictures and clearer sound.

Just last month, Montana’s two senators, Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Conrad R. Burns, sent a letter to the head of the FCC, saying the nation’s 136 smallest TV markets “need more time before being required to transmit a digital signal.”

“What we are asking for is some sort of streamlined waiver process that serves the interests of consumers, the FCC and the broadcast industry,” said Henry L. Bauman, an executive vice president of the NAB. “We can’t wait until the last minute next spring and have the commission flooded with [waiver] applications.”

Two recent developments had seemed to herald a new era of digital entertainment.

Last week, five major Hollywood studios agreed on an anti-piracy technology, allaying the concern that free copies of video entertainment would be distributed on the Internet. And two months earlier, major consumer electronics companies announced they would begin shipping television sets and other equipment this fall with the circuitry needed to unscramble and view copy-protected digital content.

But Robert A. Perry, director of marketing for Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America Inc., said momentum will slow because broadcasters are likely to win a delay from federal regulators.

“I would imagine that the FCC will give them a one-year waiver at the least” to make the transition to digital TV, Perry said. “People are not going to buy digital TV if broadcasters turn off their transmitters for part of the day.”

FCC officials declined to comment.

But regulators have grown increasingly frustrated with the slow transition to digital TV--a key Information Age technology that policymakers believe can help stimulate economic growth. Fewer than 1% of television owners have bought digital TV sets, which can provide distortion-free video and sound but cost $1,500 or more.

Last year, then-FCC Chairman William E. Kennard asked Congress to impose an airwave squatter’s tax to encourage broadcasters to make the switch to digital.

More recently, W. Kenneth Ferree, newly appointed head of the FCC’s cable bureau, expressed concern over the lack of industry cooperation regarding digital TV after visiting a department store and being told that digital TV sets on the showroom floor wouldn’t work with cable.

Under FCC rules, broadcasters--who received an estimated $70 billion in digital TV airwaves in 1997--must begin transmitting digital signals by May. However, the stations also must continue broadcasting ordinary analog TV until 85% of homes in their markets can receive a digital TV signal.

Although 201 stations serving about 70% of all TV households have made the digital transition, many rural areas and even a few big-city public TV stations have yet to begin transmitting digital TV.

“We’ve estimated the total systemwide cost to transition at $1.8 billion, but our stations have only raised $600 million at the state and local” level for DTV funding, said John Lawson, president of the Assn. of America’s Public Television Stations in Washington.

Lawson said that though public TV stations have not formally joined the NAB in seeking a delay, more than two-thirds of the nation’s 354 public stations “will have to apply for waivers and will miss the deadline” to broadcast digital TV.