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DTV transition: Fritts offers an olive branch

NAB President/CEO Eddie Fritts, acting on the advice of Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-LA), former recent Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has fired off a letter to his opposite number at the NCTA, Robert Sachs, proposing that representative of the broadcast and cable businesses sit down soon to hash out details of the DTV transition.

"At last week's Congressional 'Roundtable' for stakeholders in the transition of digital television, Rep. Billy Tauzin suggested that transitional DTV broadcast carriage issues would better be resolved by the affected parties than by government," wrote Fritts.

"Following up on Rep. Tauzin's suggestion," he continued, "I would like to propose a meeting as early as possible between key broadcast and cable industry leaders. Our goal should be simple: to set aside past policy differences, while doing what's best for the viewing public.

Fritts concluded, "I want to emphasize the broadcast industry goal of completing this transition as quickly as possible and returning analog spectrum. We believe that transitional carriage of all broadcast stations on cable can expedite the transition."

RBR observation:

Tauzin is absolutely right - - to begin with, legislators are not experts in broadcasting or cable. They do not necessarily know when they are monkeying with a trifle or with a cornerstone of either business. To top it off, their broadcast vote may be little more than a bargaining chip - - something to trade in return for a vote to get a new cloverleaf built in their district!

If the broadcasting and cable industries want a resolution that is businesslike, they will be much better off doing it themselves.

It seems to us that the biggest sticking point between broadcast and cable is carriage of multiple split-channel streams when broadcasters are not broadcast HDTV programming.

What we gathered from Media Bureau chief Ken Ferree in an in-depth discussion of the topic last spring was that cable operators should have plenty of capacity to carry the split signal, hinting that such a requirement would probably be granted broadcasters if it is up to him.

On the other hand, the purpose of the DTV transition, we think, isn't to give broadcasters a sextopoly in each market, it's to bring high-def programming into each market.

So perhaps a starting point for negotiation would be for cable operators to agree to full split-signal carriage, while broadcasters agree to provide a certain amount of high-def every day (at least those broadcasters with a major network affiliation).

That was easy, wasn't it? (OK, now we'll take on Israel and Palestine!)