Take Enforcement Action Against DTV Receivers That Can't Get WJLP, CBS Urges FCC

If DTV receivers and converters aren't properly tuning WJLP Middletown, New Jersey, on virtual-channel 33, the products may be violating FCC rules, said CBS in a letter posted Wednesday in docket 14-150. It responded to WJLP owner PMCM's emergency request last month for Media Bureau relief to grant the broadcaster's virtual channel 3.10 request. "The FCC should take appropriate enforcement action against" makers of equipment that can't tune WJLP, said CBS. "The need for FCC action is particularly important given that the impact of such equipment performance problems is likely to be exacerbated once broadcast television stations are operating on fewer RF channels following the upcoming incentive spectrum auction." PMCM's request said it tested TVs, including smart sets, and digital converters from companies including Hisense, JVC, Panasonic, Phillips and Sony and some of the devices didn't work properly. Representatives for those companies didn't comment Thursday, nor did CEA. When viewers selected Channel 33, PMCM said, the receivers in most sets instead tuned to WCBS-TV New York, which broadcasts on that channel. In August and September, more than 40 sets were tested, some in viewer homes, and most couldn't get WJLP over the air, said broadcast lawyer Don Evans of Fletcher Heald, which represents PMCM, in an interview Thursday. The number of viewer complaints to WJLP is rising, he said. CBS responded to PMCM's filing that the alleged failure by equipment makers to sell receivers that follow FCC rules shouldn't mean that WJLP can use a virtual channel number or a common major channel number that overlaps service contours of stations that have been on-air for "decades" on the same major channel number. CBS, owner of KYW-TV Philadelphia, which FCC records show uses virtual channel 3, and Meredith, owner of WFSB Hartford, also uses that virtual channel according to records, each opposed PMCM's newest request. After winning a court order allowing WJLP to move cross country, it has been seeking FCC OK for what many have said is a technological first in broadcasting: to run on the same main program and system information protocol (PSIP) channel as another station -- WFSB -- while each would have different PSIP subchannels (see 1409160043). Amid "the unexplained tuning anomalies alleged by PMCM, switching WJLP to a virtual channel already duplicated in the market risks extending the confusion and harm to additional stations," said Meredith. "The anomalies that PMCM identifies, if widespread, may well warrant careful investigation by the Commission." Of the sets WJLP tested, "it's not just old, off-brand sets, it’s TV sets from major manufacturers, they are fairly new sets, and for whatever reason, they’re not applying the PSIP channel properly," said Evans. "We agree with CBS that there is some problem with the receivers, because some of them don’t have the problem, and some of them do." He said PMCM isn't seeking enforcement action against the manufacturers, as CBS sought.