NCTA Study Responds to NAB Study
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 10/16/2001 2:00:00 PM
The cable industry is challenging local broadcasters' claim that cable systems have the necessary channel capacity to carry both analog- and digital-TV stations' signals.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association presented federal regulators with a study Tuesday showing that dual carriage of local TV signals would displace cable networks and restrict cable operators' data and video-on-demand services.
The NCTA's study, coupled with a letter to Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell, was designed to blunt a study filed at the FCC by the National Association of Broadcasters, which concluded that cable operators could easily accommodate both signals.
The NCTA's study, which questioned the accuracy of the NAB's study on several fronts, concluded that the NAB's approach would deny consumers access to valuable new services while forcing cable operators to offer cable consumers duplicative broadcast services.
'Most vulnerable will be the newly launched and planned program services that seek to cater to specialized interests,' the NCTA study said. 'There are unlikely to be readily available TV-programming substitutes for cable services oriented to niche audiences.'
The NCTA study was prepared by PDS Consulting in Lexington, Mass. The NAB's study was prepared by the Miller Weiss Group.
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