mediageek radioshow headlines for 4-19-02

Mediageek headline news features stories about our communications environment that typically get relegated to the business pages of our newspapers and often don’t get reported at all in the electronic media. News on the media and communications industries is not just of interest to investors and stockholders – it’s important to all us of us, especially if we want to have a role in changing our media environment to serve our needs and suit our desires.
Here’s some things that have happened in our media environment this week:

DTV in C-U
Thursday’s edition of the News-Gazzette featured an article on the slow roll-out of digital high-definition television in the Champaign-Urbana area. According to the article, only one station, WCIA channel 3, out of 5 local stations, is broadcasting a digital high-definition TV signal. The article notes that demand for digital television receivers is low, mostly due to their high cost and the availability of little programming. And in true chicken-and-egg fashion, the broadcast industry says that the slow sales of digital TVs has provided little encouragement for them to make the expensive digital upgrade quickly. What the article doesn’t mention is that all television broadcasters now occupy two separate channel spaces, one for the current analog transmission and one for digital signals, whether or not they’re using the digital one. The second piece of valuable spectrum was handed over to broadcasters for free as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which requires that all stations switch completely over to digital broadcasts by 2006, when they are also supposed to give up their analog channel space. In 1997 Congress passed a bill that allows broadcasters to retain their analog channel space under certain conditions. If vacant, that old analog channel space could be used to implement any number of new wireless communications services.

The nationwide roll-out of digital television has been going very slowly in almost every television market, which has brought increased scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission. Earlier this month FCC Chair Michael Powell released a proposal to broadcasters for them to voluntarily speed up the transition to digital television. The implied threat is that the FCC and possibly Congress might step in to force their hand if things don’t start happening more quickly.

However, the implementation of digital television is further complicated by concerns being voiced by an entertainment industry consortium. The entertainment industry is afraid that programming distributed by the established digital television standard can be too easily pirated. So, on Tuesday, April 16 a group of electronics makers and movie studios reached a preliminary agreement on establishing a standard for copy protecting high-definition broadcasts viewed on digital TV sets. Unfortunately, this plan requires the use of a new interface connection between digital televisions and receiving equipment that is incompatible with most digital televisions currently for sale and the 2 million sets already in use. Thus early-adopters of expensive digital televisions may find their pricey sets made obsolete and unusable in the very near future.

With all this industry and legal wrangling, it’s still unclear what benefits digital television will offer the average TV viewer. While the system does offer a much higher quality picture, broadcasters are much more excited about the potential to broadcast simultaneously several standard quality signals over a single channel, essentially giving them multiple TV channels for the price of one. Assuming that the transition to digital television actually happens, every household in the US will be forced to upgrade their analog TV sets by 2006, or give up broadcast television altogether.

To voice your opinion on the transition to digital TV, contact your local federal representatives of the fcc. You can find your represenatives’ contact information at the Thomas website at Thomas.loc.gov and you can contact the FCC at www.fcc.gov.

Content Protection Hearing
U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin is holding a committee hearing on the issue of “Ensuring Content Protection in the Digital Age.” The list of attendees is not yet finalized but this hearing is sure to tackle current controversies over the use of copy protection technologies in all digital media devices, from computers and televisions, to DVD players and maybe even radios. The entertainment industry is lobbying congress hard to force electronics and computer manufacturers to implement protections that would prevent unauthorized copying of things like movies and music. According to most industry proposals, such technologies would also allow entertainment companies to prevent legal forms of copying, such as making CDs from mp3 music files purchased over the Internet, or making backup copies of software or movies. Although it’s yet unclear, the implementation of new copy protection standards might also render all current digital devices, like CD players and computer DVD drives, obsolete for future movies or CDs.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing is scheduled for April 25 at 12:30 PM in the Rayburn House Office Building. A live webcast of the hearing is scheduled.