WASHINGTON-TV broadcasters said they plan to fight any proposal that would force them to pay fees for 700 MHz spectrum they have not vacated by 2007. Further, during a Senate panel hearing on the transition to high-definition television, bickering between cable operators and TV broadcasters underscored the dismal chance that wireless telecom carriers will ever gain access to the six megahertz of spectrum.
Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.)-who said he came to the Senate to fight corporate give-aways like the free spectrum to broadcasters-seemed intrigued with an idea proposed in January by former FCC Chairman William Kennard that would charge broadcasters a fee if they kept their analog spectrum past the 2007 deadline. President George W. Bush also alluded to the idea as part of his budget blueprint last week.
But the National Association of Broadcasters’ Ben Tucker said that industry, considered one of the most powerful lobbying forces on Capitol Hill, would not go for it.
TV broadcasters were loaned an extra six megahertz of spectrum to help them transition to HDTV. They are supposed to give back this spectrum by 2007, once the transition is complete.
But to date the transition to digital TV has not been smooth. TV broadcasters are now only agreeing to broadcast in digital-and successfully lobbied for a caveat on the spectrum giveback. They only have to give back the six megahertz on Jan. 1, 2007 if 85 percent of the homes in their viewing area are capable of receiving digital signals.
“The history of [digital TV] already reads like a Russian novel. It was born not in the laboratory, but on K Street, an attempt by broadcasting lobbyists to block land mobile services from gaining access to [ultra high frequency] spectrum in the mid-1980s. [HDTV] was the reason created for freezing any use of the idle bandwidth, despite pressing demands for more wireless telephone competition. … While a switchover date has been set in law, no one seriously believes that analog broadcasting will go dark in 2006. If they did, they’d be buying [DTV] sets,” said Thomas W. Hazlett, Ph.D., a former chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission now resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
Hazlett made his statements last week as the Senate Commerce Committee examined how the transition to digital TV was going.
Not well was the answer from broadcasters, economists, a cable operator and a consumer advocate.
This was none too pleasing to Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has long derided what he calls a $70 billion give-away to broadcasters.
“Cable operators didn’t ask for $70 billion in spectrum. You did,” McCain told Tucker, executive vice president of broadcast operations for Fisher Broadcasting Inc.
Tucker said the reason the transition to DTV was failing was because the cable companies would not agree to carry all of the broadcast signals- both analog and digital.
Broadcasters like Jeff Sagansky, who also testified at the hearing, believe it is imperative that cable companies be forced to carry all of the signals-even if that means six different stations, which is a possibility if broadcasters decide to multicast digital programming instead of streaming HDTV.
“The capability to multicast several programming services is the key to their use of the digital spectrum. … But we need the assurance that our multiple free, over-the-air programming services will be received by the 70 percent of the homes of this country that are served by cable and satellite. They are the gatekeepers,” said Sagansky, president and chief executive officer of Paxson Communications.
The FCC in January said cable operators had to offer one DTV station after broadcasters give back their analog channel, but none during the transition.
However, cable operators believe the government is over-regulating the industry by its requirement that cable must carry all digital signals. Cable operators also chided TV broadcasters for lack of a business plan.
“Broadcasters have not developed a digital business plan. … Dual carriage would appropriate an additional six megahertz of scarce channel capacity for programming services that do not even exist yet, and may never exist. … Consumers benefit if cable operators are free to use their digital capacity for the things consumers want,” said Michael Willner, president and chief executive officer of Insight Communications representing the National Cable Television Association.
And so it went, with cable blaming broadcasters and broadcasters saying that unless they could get access to the 70 percent of their consumers who view television by cable or satellite, the transition would not go forward.
Senators tried to get panelists to move off their dug-in positions to no avail. While it seems the spectrum may never be available for advanced wireless services, McCain was even more pessimistic, telling reporters he believes the broadcasters will lobby to further extend the 2007 deadline.
To this end, broadcasters may have found a friend in this effort in the form of Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.). “We are not on target to meet the 2006 deadline and The Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers are dead. …Is the deadline too quick? Putting a deadline on technology is like putting a deadline on removing the troops from Bosnia,” said Cleland.
This will not be the last word on the DTV transition-and wireless carriers’ hopes of gaining access to that prime spectrum. McCain said the Senate Commerce Committee would hold more hearings and the House telecommunications subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for March 15.
