B'casters' HDTV Plans Still Fuzzy............................
multichannel.com
By TED HEARN
Washington -- Broadcast TV executives last week made various promises about offering the public some free high-definition television, but they cited cost factors and fickle consumer demand for remaining fuzzy about the number of hours that they will actually air.
It appeared that the commitments failed to mollify either Senate Commerce Committee chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) or Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), who complained at a hearing that stations sought and obtained free digital TV licenses to broadcast HDTV in order to stimulate audience demand for HDTV receivers.
The committee room was crammed with lobbyists from various industries, including cable.
"We're just watching," a cable lobbyist said.
Still, board members of the National Cable Television Association, who met in New York last week, felt bullish enough on the service to put out a press release saying that the industry will "continue to move ahead to provide customers" with HDTV.
Hollings blamed HDTV waffling on the Federal Communications Commission, for failing to adopt an HDTV-broadcast standard and for favoring maximum spectrum flexibility over rapid rollout of HDTV.
"We were on track, and this thing's been moving forward until [the FCC] muddied the waters," Hollings said.
McCain said he was most troubled by broadcasters that planned to offer only "some" HDTV, because consumers will be unwilling to buy -- and manufacturers unwilling to make -- expensive HDTV sets that receive pictures sporadically.
"The public now has no real certainty of what they're likely to get in return [for the free spectrum to stations], or when they're likely to get it. I [don't] think we should accept that," McCain said.
McCain also voiced outrage at comments by Westinghouse Corp. (parent of CBS Inc.) chairman Michael Jordan and HSN Inc. chairman Barry Diller that no one in the broadcast industry had the slightest idea what to do with the new spectrum, after promising for years to offer HDTV if Congress and the FCC would only cooperate.
McCain said the about-face was linked to the passage of the recent balanced-budget deal, which continued the spectrum-auction exemption for broadcasters.
"Other explanations may be less cynical, but they're also less plausible," McCain said.
McCain called a hearing last week in response to comments in August by Preston Padden, president of ABC Television Network, and David Smith, president of Sinclair Broadcasting Inc., that true HDTV was not in their immediate plans.
Both Padden and Smith, to a lesser extent, retreated from their earlier statements.
"ABC still remains committed to broadcasting HDTV programming," Padden told the Senate Commerce Committee. "We remain committed to giving HDTV a fair market test."
Smith said his 29-station company will launch HDTV by transmitting such programming delivered by the major networks.
"We believe that HDTV will be a component of what is ultimately accepted by the consumer," Smith told the panel.
And Robert Decherd, president and CEO of A.H. Belo Corp., who represented the National Association of Broadcasters, was a bit more definite.
"Let me be very clear on this point: Local broadcasters like Belo must deliver HDTV in order to preserve these franchises," Decherd said.
None of the broadcasters promised to initiate full-time HDTV service. Padden said "some" HDTV service will be offered; Smith said he had no idea how much HDTV he will air; and Decherd said Belo will move to HDTV "as due process allows."
Padden said ABC had not abandoned HDTV. Nor will the network offer subscription services. ABC, he said, has explored multiplexing the digital signal, but no viable business plan has been developed.
"We expect that these digital broadcasts will be a single channel replicating our current programming, including some HDTV programming, to provide a fair market test," Padden said.
Leo Hindery, president and chief operating officer of Tele-Communications Inc., said, "The cable industry has affirmatively said we're for HDTV, [but] there's nothing [for the industry] to do until somebody produces programming in high-def."
He acknowledged Home Box Office's and Discovery Communications Inc.'s decisions to develop HDTV programming, but he said his only objection lies in a government mandate to rid the country of analog TVs by 2006, in favor of digital sets.
"I hate that sort of mandated, date-certain approach," Hindery said.
Smith said in August that multiplexing was the best use of the new digital license, because the costs to upgrade stations to full-time HDTV and the costs of HDTV-ready receivers (estimated to range between $3,000 and $4,000) were too high.
But Smith changed his story, saying that his company will spend about $2 million per station to pass through HDTV programming delivered by the networks. He told the committee that he has to be concerned about spending $8 million to $10 million to upgrade a station for 24-hour HDTV, and then finding that consumers had soured on the product.
"In five years from now, [if] they say they don't want it, then I've made a big mistake in terms of my investment," Smith said.
Hundt, who also testified, said the FCC was right not to mandate an HDTV standard, saying that "offshore" TV-set makers attempted to preclude American-based computer companies from participating.
Hundt, egged on by the computer industry, was a strong backer of the no-HDTV requirement. Intel Corp. last week reaffirmed its support for maximum spectrum flexibility.
"High-definition turned out to be more a lobbying idea than a business strategy," Hundt said, adding, "50 to 60 digital channels in Washington, D.C., alone ... would be more effective and immediate competition to cable than anything else that you are likely to see in the near-term horizon."
Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) told the panel that he supported flexible use, provided that the public was reimbursed by TV stations for non-HDTV applications of the digital spectrum.
Leslie Ellis contributed to this story. |
