Posted on February 21, 2009 by David Oxenford

FCC Releases More Details of Delayed DTV Transition - No More DTV Conversions Until April?

The FCC late Friday released an Order and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking addressing a number of issues which arose as a result of the Congressional delay in the DTV transition deadline from February 17 until June 12.  In many cases, the actions taken in the Order are ministerial - e.g. changing the expiration dates on digital construction permits from February to June.  But there were also a number of substantive issues addressed by the order - including the public education requirements for the remainder of the transition and the potential for delaying any further terminations of analog service until at least April, and subjecting any planned termination of analog service before June 12 to additional scrutiny to determine if that termination would serve the public interest.   This is despite what many have termed a relatively uneventful termination of analog service on February 17 by over 400 stations nationwide.  Comments on this change in the transition procedures are to be filed on an expedited basis - within 5 days of the publication of this order in the Federal Register.

The delay of the early termination of service is likely to cause the most controversy, as Senate Republicans backed the transition delay only after specifically including in the legislation language that seemingly permitted such transitions under the rules that were in place at the time that the legislation was adopted (see our post here).  This would seemingly have permitted stations to terminate analog service within 90 days of the June 12 deadline, provided they had given their listeners at least 30 days notice of their plans.  A number of stations have started to provide that notice, planning a termination in March. But the Commission has tentatively concluded that it can amend the process for termination, and has set the date of March 17 for a notice to be filed at the FCC by all stations that want to terminate analog service before June 12.  As the Commission plans to continue to require 30 days public notice of the termination, and as they won't allow any termination decision to become official until the March 17 filing, the earliest a station can terminate analog service under this proposal (absent a technical issue or other extreme circumstance) would be April 16. 

Even then, the Commission proposes to review the requests for early termination to see if they meet certain public interest standards.  The Commission suggests that the intent of Congress was to give the public until June 12 to prepare for the transition, and thus urges as many stations to keep their analog transmissions operating until that date.  The Commission will be especially concerned about network affiliates terminating service before the June date. The Commission proposes that such stations will be required to make a showing that their operation is in the public interest, by assessing these factors:

  • If analog service will continue through June 12 to at least 90% of the station's service area (either through another network affiliate continuing in analog or a station with "enhanced analog nightlight" - the nightlight service with news and public affairs programs) continuing in 90% of the service area through June 12 
  • Provide on-air consumer education information - including a proposal to enhance such information by requiring stations to provide specific information as to areas that will have a loss of television service because of a difference in digital coverage from that previously provided by the analog station, and information about how to find out what kind of antenna will be necessary to receive the digital signal
  • Enhanced community outreach, including a call center to deal with consumer complaints, and a walk-in center where demonstrations can be provided to viewers as to how to use converter boxes.
  • Specific on-air crawls for the week prior to termination making clear when the termination will occur.

Stations that don't meet these requirements can make a special showing as to why they should still be able to terminate early.  And the FCC reserves the right to reject the showing and refuse to allow the station to transition early.  Comments on all of these proposals are solicited in the short comment period.  With all of the notices that are being provided to consumers (first that the transition would occur on February 17, then that it would occur on June 12, then for some stations that it might occur in March, but now not until at least April.  With all of these dates flying around, would the Commission really tell someone that they can't transition in April, giving consumers in that market yet another date by which they should transition?  The FCC has asked that stations that want to transition early file comments in the rulemaking proceeding, addressing why they want to so transition, and whether they will be able to meet these criteria.

Comments are also solicited on changes to the consumer education requirements of the rules.  Specific new information to be required, in addition to the information as to potential loss areas discussed above, would include information about a consumer's need to rescan the channels on their digital tuners at the end of the transition to find the channels on which stations will be operating at the end of the transition.   

As this proceeding may be very important to stations that may want to transition early, as well as for stations that plan to keep operating through June 12, watch for the filing deadline very soon. 
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Posted on February 3, 2009 by David Oxenford

Will the House Pass the DTV Extension? - Dueling Congressional Letters Take Opposing Positions

As we wrote on Friday, the Senate has passed the Bill that would extend from February 17 to June 12 the deadline for full-power television stations to transition to digital operations.  This leaves the House of Representatives to once again consider the matter - supposedly in committee on Tuesday and perhaps by vote of the full House as early as Wednesday.  In preparation for that consideration, there have been conflicting letters released by Congressmen supporting the bill and those who are oppose.  The opponents claim that the ability of TV stations to transition before the end date, an option that was important to Senate Republicans who unanamously supported the extension of the transition date, may not in reality exist.  The supporters of the bill point to the over 1.85 million people who are on the waiting list for the $40 coupons to be applied against the cost of DTV converters to allow analog televisions to receive digital signals after the transition.  What do these letters add to the debate?

The Republican Congressmen leading the charge against the delay of the transition suggest in their letter that the ability of TV stations to transition before an extended June 12 DTV deadline is largely illusory, as they imply that most stations cannot transition until the last day because of interference concerns.  They have asked the FCC to immediately provide information about how many stations would be precluded from a transition until June 12 if the date is extended.  From our experience, while there are some stations that need to delay their DTV transition until some other station has changed channels, we would be surprised if most stations are precluded from doing so.  Many stations are simply going to continue on the channels on which they are currently operating their DTV transitional facilities.  Thus, if they are already operating their DTV stations on their post-transition channel, by definition they are not suffering from any preclusive interference issues.  And the vast majority of the remaining stations are planning to operate after the transition on their current analog channel which itself, in most cases, is free from interference as the analog operation would have in most cases precluded other stations on interfering channels from operating in too close a proximity to the area served by the station.   We are aware of many stations ready to transition early even if the deadline is extended until June 12, and we would think that these stations had reviewed their situations before deciding to do so, and would have been aware of interference concerns in preparation for their February 17 changeover.  In some cases they may have coordinated an early change with any station that would have presented an interference issue.  Thus, we would be surprised if the FCC report prepared for these Congressmen finds a great number of stations that will be forced to wait until June 12 to do their digital conversion even if they are inclined to make the change early.

The supporters of the transition point to number of people waiting for their coupons and, to make the point directly to each Congressman, they attach a list showing, by Congressional district, how many people from that district are on the wait list - numbers in almost every case in the thousands, and in almost every case about half of which are in households that only receive TV service over-the-air.  This would seem to show each Congressman that there are real people in their districts who would be hurt if the transition is not delayed.  One would think that this demonstration of the real impact on real people in each district would provide a powerful incentive for Congressmen to vote for the extension though, in the confused process that has been taking place, we'll only know for sure what will happen, when it happens.  Stay tuned.

 Update (February 3, 9 PM) - Acting FCC Chairman Copps has reportedly confirmed that 61% of all TV stations could transition early simply by turning off their analog facilities, as they are already operating in digital on their final channel.  He further speculated that most of the remaining stations may be able to do so as well.  This confirms the suspicions that we expressed earlier today.

Also, it appears that the House Rules Committee has reported out the DTV extension bill to the full House of Representatives, leaving it possible that the extension could be voted on tomorrow, February 4 and, if approved by a majority vote as expected, it would then only need President Obama's signature to become law.   
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