Most Commercial Broadcasters Will Miss Deadline for Digital Television
By STEPHEN LABATON
ASHINGTON, April 28 — Another milestone in the nation's tortured transition to digital
television is about to be missed. Almost three-quarters of the commercial broadcasters that
were supposed to be offering a digital signal by Wednesday will fail to make the deadline.
The delay is a further indication that the federally mandated transition to digital broadcasting will take
longer than the planners had expected in the mid-1990's. But the missed deadline comes as no
surprise. Hundreds of stations have been filing requests for extensions recently, citing a variety of
financial and technical reasons.
A report issued last week by the General Accounting Office found that 74 percent of the stations that
were supposed to be emitting a digital signal by the May 1 regulatory deadline would be unable to do
so. The report said most of the delinquent stations had cited the high cost of new technology. For
stations in transition, the expenses averaged 63 percent of annual revenue for a technology that adds
nothing discernable to the bottom line. The report also noted the relatively low consumer interest
caused by the high prices of digital TV sets and a host of technical issues like tower constructions.
Despite the difficulties, 95 percent of the major network affiliates in the top 30 markets are already
offering digital broadcasting, and their signals reach about half of the population. But the failure of the
smaller broadcasters is symbolic of a much larger nagging problem of aligning the technical and
financial interests of a handful of industries — broadcasters, programmers, cable operators and
electronic equipment makers — to make digital television accessible at affordable prices to
consumers.
"It's a very complicated transition with lots of moving parts," said Rick Chessen, the chairman of a
regulatory task force supervising the government's oversight of the conversation to digital television.
Digital television, which Congress and policy makers have been promoting the last six years, offers
crisper images and sound, reduced interference and the prospect of viewers communicating through
the set much the way they now do on the Internet. But transforming TV from analog to digital has
public-policy significance beyond pretty pictures and greater viewer participation.
Policy makers of varying approaches agree that, by using a far smaller sliver of the electronic
spectrum, digital significantly frees the airwaves for more productive use by other industries, including
wireless communications, whose proponents are clamoring for more licenses. Once digital penetrates
85 percent of the nation's viewing market, the law requires broadcasters to surrender their
analog-spectrum licenses back to the government to be reissued to other commercial ventures at
auction. As a result, analysts and policy makers agree that the longer the digital transition, the greater
the economic overhang.
"Spectrum is critical for us to have economic growth," said Blair Levin, a former top official at the
Federal Communications Commission who is a regulatory analyst at Legg Mason. "To the extent it is
tied up, it represents a huge drag on the economy."
The rollout of digital TV has stalled over many uncertainties about how to do so profitably.
Broadcasters, particularly smaller ones, see little or no financial benefit yet in offering digital signals.
Consumers cannot find high-definition television sets at affordable prices. Programmers have moved
slowly in offering shows of digital quality. Cable operators have only just begun, in small pockets, to
transmit digital signals.
Hoping to break the logjam, Michael K. Powell, the F.C.C. chairman, has called for the major
industrial players to impose their own voluntary deadlines.
"You will get on this train in the right way, or it will run you over," he said this month at the annual
conference of the National Association of Broadcasters.
Mr. Powell urged the four major networks and other major programmers to digitally broadcast at
least half of their prime-time shows by this fall. He asked cable and satellite companies to carry some
digital programs by the beginning of next year at no extra cost to subscribers. And he proposed
deadlines over the next four years for television makers to increase their production of sets that
include digital tuners.
Others long engaged in the debate say that Mr. Powell's proposal is not enough, and that in some
instances it asks industry players to do little more than they had previously pledged. While there is no
momentum on Capitol Hill for the imposition of sanctions on tardy industry players or subsidies to
encourage faster transition, some lawmakers are calling for legislation to prod a faster conversion.
"Our digital policy is a mess, and in the absence of the federal government intervening with a
comprehensive policy, the American consumer is unlikely to ever receive the full benefits of the digital
revolution," said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who is the ranking
Democrat on a House subcommittee on telecommunications. "Voluntary approaches don't work. A
voluntary policy is what got us to today's mess. What we've wound up with now is the broadcast
industry and cable industry engaged in spectrum hostage-taking with no end in sight, and no relief for
the benefit of consumers."
Federal rules required the 119 largest network affiliates to begin transmitting some digital programs by
May 1999. That deadline has largely been met.
By Wednesday, 1,121 smaller stations were supposed to be in compliance, but nearly three-quarters
will fail to meet the deadline. But industry officials said that they expected most of the broadcasters to
be in compliance by the end of the year.
"We consider this a short-term issue affecting mostly small and medium market broadcasters," said
Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | |
