House Dems urge DTV slowdown
A group of six Democrats in the House of Representatives have fired off a letter to FCC Chairman Michael Powell urging him to apply the brakes to the DTV transition process. They are concerned about the potential loss of service to poor Americans, particularly in rural areas.
It appears that Powell has accommodated at least a temporary slowdown, postponing a Commission level vote which could have been held next week (see related article). However, the so-called Ferree plan calls for the return of TV spectrum for reallocation by the end of 2008, and the Bush administration has made it clear that it wants the spectrum back as much as two years earlier.
G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) said, "The FCC may consider speeding up the timetable for all-digital cable broadcast this month. Unfortunately, in poor rural places like eastern North Carolina this could leave a lot of people in the dark when it comes to watching television. At a $250 minimum investment to simply continue watching television there are far too many people who can't afford this cost."
Joining Butterfield in signing the letter were Bob Etheridge (D-NC), John Lewis (D-GA), Michael Ross, (D-AR), Bennie Thompson (D-MS), and Marion Berry (D-AR).
Media Bureau chief Ken Ferree has suggested that the government use some of the proceeds from the resale of spectrum to provide converter boxes, which would translate the new digital signals back to analog, to those who need them, a sentiment echoed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Broadcasters likewise want to make sure no viewers lose service. The White House, however, has indicated it does not support such a plan, and others see down-conversion as counter to the original reason for moving to digital in the first place.
Other major sticking points remain as well, chief among them the rules of the road for cable must-carry. In particular, the broadcast and cable industries are tussling over whether cable companies must pass along split-stream programming from broadcast stations when the latter are not airing high-definition material.
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