Martin Forced To Dump His Dual Carriage Plan
Operators Will Have to Carry Analog and Digital Signals For Only Three Years
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 9/11/2007 3:35:00 PM MT
Washington -- The cable industry scored a decisive political victory Tuesday night when Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin had to dump a draconian digital TV plan that cable vowed to contest in court, perhaps rupturing the harmony needed by the industry-government effort to shift the nation to all-digital broadcast TV in early 2009 without a massive consumer rebellion.
After an 11-hour delay to the start of its monthly meeting, the FCC voted 5-0 at about 10 p.m. to require cable systems to distribute local TV stations that demand carriage in both analog and digital formats for a three-year period starting Feb. 18, 2009. That’s the day after all 1,756 full-power TV stations must turn off their analog signals and rely exclusively on their digital feeds. Cable systems that are all-digital are exempt from the FCC’s dual carriage mandate.
Martin’s plan called for dual must carry without the 2012 sunset, which the FCC did reserve the right to extend. Lobbying pressure from the National Cable & Telecommunications Association forced Martin to yield not only on perpetual dual carriage but also on a second priority: Requiring cable systems to transmit “all content bits” in a digital TV signal, thereby eliminating the use of signal compression and statistical multiplexing that husband bandwidth.
“We are pleased that the FCC’s action today adopts cable’s carriage plan. And we are pleased that the FCC dropped an ill-considered mandate that would have turned back the clock on decades of digital technology innovation,” said NCTA president Kyle McSlarrow in a statement of praise that probably means no major court fight looms.
Martin was upbeat even though his plan unraveled when he couldn’t find any takers during daylong backroom negotiations.
“I think it’s always important to reach a compromise with all of the commissioners. Today, I think analog cable consumers were the big winner,” Martin said.
Although NCTA could cheer the results, small operators that lack the clout of their big MSO brethren came away disappointed as the FCC refused to grant a blanket dual carriage waiver to small systems. Systems with 552 MHz or less may apply for FCC waivers, a bureaucratic obstacle that keeps Martin and his staff in firm control of the process, just like they did over set-top box waivers.
“It’s not fair to ask tiny rural systems to engage lawyers in Washington when a single exemption would have sufficed,” said FCC Democratic member Jonathan Adelstein, who dissented on forcing small operators to apply for waivers.
Martin did not have the same concern.
“I think we provided them an opportunity if they actually have constraints on their capacity to be able to demonstrate that and we’ll take a look at it,” Martin said.
Martin told a reporter after the meeting that cable operators will not be able to raise regulated basic tier rates to recover the cost of adding duplicative local TV signals.
“I think the reason why is that there is no additional cost for must carry channels,” Martin said. “There is no additional cost for must carry broadcast stations because they don’t get reimbursed like a retransmission consent station.”
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