When will ACRO's time be here?
Digital TV deadline hits this
weekend
By Bloomberg News
Special to CNET News.com
April 30, 1999, 4:35 p.m. PT
WASHINGTON--Television stations in the top ten cities across the U.S.
must begin airing crystal-clear digital TV programming tomorrow under a
deadline set by the federal government.
Each of the nation's 1,200 commercial TV stations received a new swath of
spectrum from the government to begin airing digital signals, which provide
high-resolution pictures and sound. Stations will phase in digital broadcasting
over the next few years, with those in cities such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia,
and New York hitting the airwaves tomorrow.
Only stations affiliated with one of the four major broadcast networks--Disney's
ABC, General Electric's NBC, CBS, and Fox Entertainment Group's Fox--are
held to tomorrow's deadline. Most of those stations will be on time, with the
exception of a few in Chicago and New York who won't because of difficulties
in getting approval to place TV towers for antennas.
"Every other communications medium is either transmitting in digital or soon
will be," said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of
Broadcasters. "For free, over-the-air television to survive, we must move to
digital as well." |
