TV Firms Split Over ‘Multicasting’

Television viewers in North Carolina’s capital are seeing double or even triple these days.

That’s because as Raleigh’s TV stations migrate to digital technology, they’re finding they can transmit several signals in bandwidth that used to carry just one.

So along with the usual CBS programming, market leader WRAL-TV Channel 5 transmits a second digital signal of high-definition shows on Channel 5-1 and runs nonstop local news on Channel 5-2.

WRAZ-TV Channel 50 also has several new personalities: Channel 50-1 airs a version of the high-definition cable network HDNet, Channel 50-2 features Fox programming and local sporting events, and Channel 50-3 offers weather updates every 10 minutes.

“It’s kind of cool,” said Dan Smith, who watches Raleigh’s digital stations all day at his Intelligent Electronics TV store. “They’ll show the Hurricanes [hockey team] on Channel 50-2 and still run all the regular prime-time shows.”

WRAL and WRAZ are owned by Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Co., a quirky broadcaster that has turned North Carolina into a test market for a cutting-edge technology known as multicasting.

Jim Goodmon, Capitol’s chief executive, said he was sold on multicasting. “It’s making us better broadcasters.”

But the question remains: Is multicasting the future of broadcasting or another promising technology that will never catch on?

So far, multicasting is more prevalent on corporate drawing boards than in living rooms. Most Americans have never heard of the technology, which is being tested in a few markets and can be received only by expensive digital TV sets with special receivers that can recognize a station’s extra channels.

Nevertheless, a ferocious lobbying war is being waged between broadcasters and cable operators over whether the Federal Communications Commission should step in to give the technology a boost.

The dispute centers on whether cable operators should be required to carry all of the channels created by a broadcaster or just the broadcaster’s single pre-multicasting channel, which federal law requires them to carry.

A decision by the FCC is expected early next year.

Cable industry lobbyists are urging the agency to take a hands-off approach. They fear that multicasting will lead to a blizzard of channels that will overwhelm -- and ultimately turn off -- viewers. If broadcasters create compelling channels, cable companies say, they will want to carry them. But, they say, the decision should be left up to them.

“This is valuable spectrum, and it ought to be used for services that have the greatest value,” said Robert Sachs, president of the National Cable and Telecommunications Assn.

Broadcasters say multicasting promises to transform free over-the-air television by offering dozens of innovative channels. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the new channels -- particularly if cable operators are required to carry them -- offer lucrative opportunities for broadcasters.

Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC said last month that it planned to expand its multicasting experiment from Fresno’s KFSN-TV to nine other markets, including Los Angeles and San Francisco. KFSN has three multicasts: ABC programming, a news channel and a weather channel.

NBC, a division of General Electric Co., is considering using multicasting to launch a “sneak peak” channel that would promote company-owned content, including movies from Universal Studios, which GE plans to acquire.

Burbank-based NIC Entertainment told the FCC recently that it wanted to launch a 24-hour children’s network available to broadcasters through multicasting.

And public television stations are exploring the community and educational benefits of multicasting, including gavel-to-gavel coverage of state and local government, foreign-language programming in markets with large immigrant populations and adult education.

Before multicasting, family-owned Capitol Broadcasting’s stations in Raleigh had to choose which sporting events to cover and when to preempt popular TV shows for breaking news. With digital technology, signals can be compressed: Up to six standard channels, or one high-definition signal and two standard channels, can be squeezed into a station’s bandwidth.

This year, that enabled WRAL to provide live coverage of a murder trial involving a former city councilman without preempting daytime programs. When four NCAA basketball games were scheduled for the same night, WRAL aired all four live using multicast channels.

“Before, we wouldn’t have been able to do those things with just the mother ship,” said Jim Hefner, general manager at WRAL. “That’s the public benefit.”

Critics question whether consumers -- already faced with a 500-channel pay-television universe -- really want more choices, and whether broadcasters have the money to provide quality programming on new channels.

They fear broadcasters will use new channels as revenue builders by airing paid programming, infomercials or pay-per-view.

“We don’t want to see the cable lineup dumbed down with infomercials, home shopping channels and low-budget programming,” said Sachs, the cable industry’s head lobbyist.

Some say requiring broadcasters to compete with cable channels for a space on the lineup would provide an incentive to create better programming.

“Broadcasters don’t even air much original fare on their multicast channels,” complained Adam Thierer, media analyst at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank. “It’s mostly the same programming found on their analog station digitally converted to look a little better.”

In the middle of the debate is Capitol, a Republican-leaning broadcaster that gave Sen. Jesse Helms his start and pulled Fox’s “Married by America” off its stations for “demeaning” marriage.

Goodmon, whose grandfather founded Capitol in 1937, routinely finds himself at odds with fellow broadcasters. He opposed the relaxing of local media-ownership rules and urges federal regulators to impose tougher public-interest obligations on TV stations like his.

He also has made a big bet on digital TV, which Congress and the FCC have been prodding the industry to embrace. But Capitol’s $28-million gamble on new digital equipment, towers and marketing has yet to pay off.

“We’re not paying for all of this yet,” said John Greene, a former station manager who now heads the digital transition. He noted that it costs $20,000 to televise a basketball game in digital high definition, compared with $8,000 to shoot the same game in analog. WRAL hasn’t yet figured out how to recoup those higher costs.

To keep expenses down, Capitol relies mostly on repackaged shows and reruns to fill its multicast channels. Though CBS provides high-definition shows during prime time, WRAL fills the days with old movies, documentaries and reruns of sporting events shot in high definition. The new 24-hour news channel has no reporters of its own, relying on snippets from the regular WRAL newscasts.

Goodmon predicts that original programming will increase over time as more broadcasters convert to digital, but only if cable operators are required to carry every channel a broadcaster transmits. A government mandate, known as digital must-carry, is the only way broadcasters can ensure that their ad-supported channels will reach enough viewers to be financially viable, he says.

“As long as we’re providing it to the public for free, what’s the problem?”

This fall a majority of FCC commissioners appeared ready to agree with Goodmon, despite the objections of FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell, who questioned the constitutionality of forcing cable companies to carry all of a broadcaster’s channels.

But in recent weeks, the agency’s two Democrats have expressed concerns about whether broadcasters should be required to use the new channels for specific public-interest purposes, such as local programming or children’s shows. In light of the recent easing of media-ownership rules, the Democrats also are examining whether multicasting could give broadcasters greater control in local markets.

For example, the new media-ownership rules -- which have been suspended by a federal court -- would permit a firm to own three TV stations in large markets, such as New York and Los Angeles. With multicasting, each station could transmit up to six distinct channels.

“If triopolies are allowed by the courts, digital can expand three channels to up to 18,” FCC Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein told the Federal Communications Bar Assn. recently. “That huge presence obligates broadcasters to be bound by specific rules for serving their communities.”

Most broadcasters oppose new public-interest rules, saying previous attempts to dictate television programming have been struck down.

“There are some serious 1st Amendment issues,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Broadcasters. “That gets us on a very thorny path.”

Goodmon said he welcomed tougher public-interest obligations, as long as they speed the digital transition. Though Capitol earns praise in Washington for its early embrace of digital TV, he said the company couldn’t afford to wait 20 years for the rest of the industry to catch up.

“I’ve spent all this money, and it feels like we’re never going to get there,” Goodmon said. Digital TV and multicasting promise to preserve free over-the-air TV and stem the loss of viewers to cable and satellite, he said. “But it won’t work unless everybody does it.”