FCC Draft Rulemaking Eyes 2012 Low-Power Switch to DTV

An FCC draft rulemaking proposes a 2012 deadline for U.S. low-power stations to switch to all-digital broadcasts, agency and industry officials said. That deadline was proposed in 2008 by then-Chairman Kevin Martin, but scuttled by other commissioners (CED Feb 27 p3), and now has been revived by current Chairman Julius Genachowski, agency and industry officials said. The draft asks whether a later date ought to be set, an official said. Low-power stations won’t likely be able to go all-digital in two years, said lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald, who represents low-power broadcasters that have gone all-digital.

The rulemaking circulated last week isn’t set for a quick vote and is just now starting to get FCC attention, commission officials said. The draft, if adopted, would pave the way to finish the DTV transition, since all full-power broadcasters had to stop analog transmissions last June, they said. They said the item also takes into consideration the National Broadband Plan, which said low-power stations should go all digital by 2015 or when full-power TV spectrum reallocation is finished. The draft asks whether, instead of 2012, the low-power DTV transition ought to be in 2015 or when broadcast spectrum reallocation is finished, an FCC official said.

The rulemaking doesn’t have implications for carriage of low-power stations by cable or satellite operators, an FCC official noted. It discusses a freeze on such broadcasters’ applications to seek new digital channels between 52 and 69, which is part of the 700 MHz band, and changing existing operations there, another agency official said. Tannenwald noted that low-power stations can only seek companion digital channels in that band if they show there’s nowhere else for them to go, and that’s meant to be on a temporary basis. A Media Bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the draft item.

"No 2012, we won’t do it,” said Tannenwald, who used to represent the Community Broadcasters Association before it dissolved in 2009 when low-power stations couldn’t afford to keep funding it (CED Aug 17 p2). “It took the full-power people 10 years” for their DTV switch “because they had to design their systems, they had to get tower space, they had to get financing,” he continued. “Low-power people have all those same issues and less financial resources. It’s not going to take them 10 years but it’s not going to take them two. They just can’t do that unless there’s a government grant program that’s not confined to rural areas” as the NTIA’s was.

Since millions of consumers have converter boxes so analog TVs can get digital broadcasts, many of which were purchased with NTIA-issued coupons, “the ultimate switch of the low-power television and translator industry would be appropriate,” said President David Donovan of the Association for Maximum Service Television. “The receiving equipment is clearly in place, which will assist them in getting this accomplished. I think the one thing the commission might want to look at very carefully is to what extent, if the broadband plan goes through and they take 120 MHz out of the TV band, will there be spectrum available for low-power TV.” Such spectrum reallocation as envisioned by the broadband plan would “certainly make it more difficult to operate low-power stations, [but] it doesn’t make it impossible,” Tannenwald said. “It depends on what the commission does when it compresses the band.”