Jessell at Large

Kudos to NAB, Now DTV Is Up to the FCC

The broadcasting industry's latest commitment to a successful ditital TV transition is the NAB's announcement this week that it's establishing a national phone hotline to handle consumer questions on Feb. 18 and the days that follow. Now it's time for the Obama people to take control of how the $20 million Congress gave the FCC is being spent before FCC Chairman Kevin Martin squanders more of it on NASCAR sponsorships.
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It was nice to see the NAB heeding the call of the incoming Obama administration by offering more help for the DTV transition. It was the right thing to do, not only for the public, but also for NAB's future as a Washington player. It needs to make friends in high Obama places.

As we reported last week, an Obama transition squad headed by former cable and cell-phone lobbyist Tom Wheeler met with broadcasting and cable reps in Washington on Dec. 5 and made it clear that it expected the industries to do all they could to insure that the Feb. 18 analog programming cut-off would not be an early embarrassment for the new administration.

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In prompt response, the NAB this week said that it would establish a national hotline -- a first stop for befuddled viewers on the morning of Feb. 18.

According to Jonathan Collegio, the NAB point man on all things DTV, the hotline will be an automated system where a recorded voice tries to figure out what a caller's problem is through a series of questions and then directs him to the help he needs.

That help could be a recording on the system or it could be a transfer to one of several other call centers, some of which will staffed with actual people after the analog cut-off. They are being set up by TV stations, state broadcast associations, cable and satellite operators, consumer electronics manufacturers and the FCC.

Where the caller goes will depend on that initial NAB screening. If the caller is having trouble with a converter box, he may end up with the box manufacturer.

The NAB also said that it would produce a 5-8 minute video explaining the DTV transition and common problems associated with it that TV stations may run as a loop on their analog channels after Feb. 17. Recall that Congress gave all stations permission to keep their analog stations on the air for an extra 30 days for just such a purpose.

Collegio hopes the looped video will be so good at explaining and answering questions that many viewers will not need to make any calls.

I suppose the NAB could have done more. It could have set up a real call center, with real people, all trained in how to help viewers who for whatever reason lost their TV service. I'm sure that you're like me. When I'm having trouble with some gizmo around the house, I'm in no mood to talk to a computer. The more calm the recorded voice, it seems, the more impatient I become.

But with the latest commitments, I think the NAB has finally done quite enough. Of all the affected industries, it has invested the most in DTV and gotten the least in return so far.

I don't know how much the NAB is spending on the national hotline (and NAB is not saying), but I suspect it is no small undertaking. It can be scaled to handle one million calls on Feb. 18 and another one million during the subsequent week. Based on the Wilmington, N.C., DTV trial last September, those are the number of calls the transition planners are now expecting.

Keep in mind that what the NAB is doing is also part of a much larger broadcast industry effort to get the country over the DTV hump. State associations, station groups and individual stations are also planning call centers and other activities before and after Feb. 18. It all adds up.

If I were Tom Wheeler, charged with making sure the DTV transition doesn't turn into a high-tech Katrina, I would be spending most of my time at the FCC.

Last September, Congress handed the FCC an extra $20 million for the DTV transition. That bundle will make or break the transition.

The Obama people need to get control of that money and how it is being spent before FCC Chairman Kevin Martin squanders more of it on NASCAR sponsorships. (That $350,000 media buy -- David Gilliland's car No. 38 -- was last seen limping around the track at Martinsville Speedway after hitting a wall.)

NAB President David Rehr last month urged Martin to use the money to make the FCC call center "as robust and prepared as possible for the massive number" of expected DTV calls. That was sound advice then and it's sound advice now.

A "robust and prepared" FCC call center would be a perfect complement to the planned NAB hotline. The NAB automated system would relieve the FCC of having to deal with the initial flood of calls. Instead, the FCC center could perhaps focus on the toughest cases passed along by the NAB, the ones that cannot be quickly resolved elsewhere.

The NAB has done its job, demonstrating a willingness to do more than its fair share of the transition's heavy lifting. Let's hope the the Obama team appreciates it.

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Comments (3) -

doubter Nickname posted over 3 years ago
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"Last September, Congress handed the FCC an extra $20 million for the DTV transition. That bundle will make or break the transition." The FCC is using that 20 mil to send staffers, many of whom have no idea of what is happening, to all parts of the country. That money would be much better spent beefing up their 50 person "hotline" and making it available more htan during "normal business hours five days a week."
TVGuy Nickname posted over 3 years ago
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WELL said, Mr. Jessell. Many folks in Congress AND in the general public seem to forget or be unaware of the fact that this is NOT a transition for which Broadcasters went looking. It's the consumer electronics lobbyists who largely helped push this change and they (and ironically cable / satellite providers) stand to benefit most from it. Among those who will benefit least, local TV broadcasters have bourne the heaviest burden with hours and hours of perishable commercial inventory being exhausted to help educate and promote awareness about this FEB`09 event (not to mention VERY expensive infrastructure outlays, precious time and more). I personally think we ought to pass the hat around a bit and make some of those parties mentioned above pay for some kind of "hotline," but shy of that you're right--the ball is in the FCC's court at this point. Nielsen recently estimated that over 7 million households are "digitally unready." Congress and the FCC won't know what hit them if, come February 18th, that many homes are without local broadcast television.
Anthony Belle posted over 3 years ago
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TV Stations need to tell their Viewers what RF Channer or frequency to program or change to in order to get the same program or news. For example WKNB in Youngstown, Ohio is Analog Channel 27. However it's DT channel is Channel 41. This would help the viewer with the converter box. There are some station who have not set up a digital station yet. Also the range of the new digital channel are not as strong as the analog stations. I live west of Youingstown and I can not recieve any digial stations from Pittsburgh, Pa. Yet I still recieve the Analog signals from Pittsburgh. These Issues need to be addressed. Anthony Belle Warren, Ohio

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