WASHINGTON-Even if the TV broadcasters are given incentives to speed the digital TV spectrum transition, it probably will not help, according to a draft paper released by a think tank Wednesday.
“It is extremely unlikely that even if multicasting must-carry and other broadcaster subsidies speed an 85-percent broadcast digital TV penetration rate, that Congress will then force broadcasters to give up their analog TV service. That is because of the widely acknowledged ‘granny rule,’ which is that members of Congress will not allow analog TV to be shut off in their districts as long as even a handful of constituents (granny) depend on over-the-air TV reception. A recent hearing of the House telecommunications subcommittee, where almost all the questions focused on the potential harm to a small fraction of analog TV set owners if the analog TV channel were returned after the 85-percent threshold was met and even exceeded, shows that the granny rule is still an apt description of DTV politics,” wrote J.H. Snider, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation.
Snider may be onto something. While the telecommunications leadership in the House has indicated they want to pass a bill that would end the DTV transition, the key Senate telecommunications leadership is less keen with the idea.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions yet to be decided in my judgement,” said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, in a speech at the 2005 National Association of Broadcasters State Leadership Conference. Stevens used to represent Alaska broadcasters, he told the group.
The Federal Communications Commission said Monday said TV ‘is not a priority’ for over-the-air households.
“I know that we talk about that 85 percent, but that 15 percent is not moving very fast, and that is millions of homes,” said Marsha MacBride, former FCC chief of staff and now NAB executive vice president.
MacBride appeared at a New America Foundation event Wednesday on whether broadcasters receiving multicasting must-carry would speed the transition. The FCC said Feb. 10 that cable companies are required to carry only one primary signal from TV broadcasters. NAB will seek to overturn this decision either in the courts or at the FCC, said MacBride.
In 1997, Congress said that on Jan. 1, 2007, broadcasters would have to return the extra 6 megahertz of spectrum given to TV broadcasters to facilitate the digital transition. But there was a caveat. TV broadcasters could keep the spectrum if more than 15 percent of the homes in their viewing areas could not receive digital signals. Removing the caveat has become known as establishing a hard date and has been widely encouraged by the wireless industry.
