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Editor: The column by Harry Jessell concerning our position on broadcast spectrum is interesting (Jessell at Large, "Et Tu, Consumer Electronics Industry"), but contains some uncharacteristic distortions.
First, crediting the broadcasters for the entire HDTV transition is revisionist history. While many broadcasters deserve credit for strategic thinking, most resisted and missed the opportunity to reclaim their over-the-air market share.
Indeed, the only big mistake I made in the early '90s when I drafted a long-term DTV plan for the CE industry was assuming a large role for broadcasting. I advocated for must carry for DTV long before broadcasters. I also did not foresee the lack of interest of broadcasters in expanding the OTA. (I also did not anticipate that DVD would drive HDTV sales way more than broadcasters would.)
The failure of broadcasters to take advantage of HDTV and the wisdom of a close look at spectrum utilization are related by a simple fact: today, fewer than one-tenth of American homes rely primarily on the free OTA signal.
The technology industry has always worked closely with broadcasters when it is in our best interests to do so. And vice versa. The NAB opposition and delay of the XM-Sirius merger, the repeated attempts for mandates on CE, even the proposals for excise taxes, came from broadcasters, not the CE industry.
We understand that we have different interests. I represent some 2,000 technology companies including a score of set makers. Yet, all recognize the need for more spectrum and our filing was made with our members' support. Indeed, I am aware of only one objecting member and that member sells products to broadcasters.
Your theory that we are doing this to court the Democrats is novel, but I assure you it is incorrect. We are simply trying to do the right thing for a future that requires innovation and wireless broadband. We are fairly factual and technically based in our approach. We are proud of our research. (Yes, all the DTV and coupon projections we issued for years were correct.)
The nation desperately needs spectrum and every year fewer Americans rely on the broadcasting spectrum. Somehow this fact was ignored in Jessell's analysis. We have not proposed a spectrum grab by the government, but would welcome creative alternatives which reward broadcasters for consolidation of spectrum usage.
We want a discussion, not a political battle. Broadcasters have a claim on rights through must carry and that should be part of the movement forward. Simply, it is in our national interest to use spectrum better.
So let's focus on what makes sense for the country and broadcasters and technology and consumers.
Gary Shapiro, president, Consumer Electronics Association
This letter originally appeared in the comments section following the Jessell at Large column.
Copyright 2009 NewsCheckMedia LLC. All rights reserved.
This article can be found online at: http://www.tvnewscheck.comhttp://www.tvnewscheck.com/articles/2009/11/02/daily.6/.
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Comments (3) - Post a comment
Not a single word from Mr. Shapiro about the "public interest" -- since that would require acknowledging that the airwaves belong to the PUBLIC, and should not be up for auction at all. As another TVNC reader noted elsewhere, Congress should authorize the LEASING of spectrum, not a permanent Manhattan-for-trinkets-and-beads sell-off -- and ONLY for spectrum that is in excess of what is required by America's broadcasters to serve the "public interest, convenience and necessity," to quote a phrase that apparently Mr. Shapiro has long forgotten, or chooses to conveniently forget. Broadcasting was forged as a public trust under which private enterprise was given the privilege to profit by SERVING the public interest. Mr. Shapiro: You, sir, are no William S. Paley. You will lose your declared war on free TV. And while we're talking about the "public interest" -- how about your members returning manufacturing to America's shores? Many consumers would gladly pay a few bucks more to create jobs here instead of exploiting child labor and lax environmental standards in Asia. Maybe it is time for CEA to go head-hunting.
your assumptions are based upon curiously-correct data about the public's use of free OTA broadcasting. If such statistics actually reflect reality, then all that's left to do is to close down all radio-based delivery services and replace them with wired systems - repurposing the radio spectrum for services which require mobility. Simple, common sense, right? In fact, the national aural services should be shut down as well. (Oh, I guess we can't do that because people still listen to free OTA radio in their cars. Hmm . . . dragging those long cables . . . might be a problem.)
The point is that the published statistic about public "dependence" on broadcast services is highly-contrived. Low utilization of free TV is currently being touted by special interest groups as their means to create a business opportunity for industry to tap into lucrative new subscription services. They need only capture a large swarth of public radio spectrum to secure their place in the ever-expanding get-payed-forever media service arena.
The digital broadcast industry is barely a year old, but statisticians are running numbers about DTV's limited penetration against long-entrenched cable and satellite subscription delivery services - services which incidentally "include" DTV's primary programming. Such a misuse of statistical data is patently transparent. To obtain the true "dependence", try extracting the programming of local TV stations, and then measure the subscriber count of cable and satellite TV. You may not wish to publish that pathetic number.
I subscribe to cable TV. Yet I am also an OTA broadcaster. In fact I own the first digital television station in the U.S. Were this station's and other local stations' signals not carried by local cable in non-degraded HD, I would be using my roof-mounted OTA antenna for most of what I watch. Nevertheless, your "statistic" places me among the 90% who do not watch OTA. How convenient is that.
The truth is that an increasing number of cable and satellite subscribers have access to an OTA antenna. As soon as a hurricane arrives in Florida, the OTA service works (both radio and TV) while the subscription services quickly vanish. If you think that the CE industry is unbiased in this matter, try visiting a national TV retailer and try to find a TV set connected to an antenna. Better yet, ask a salesman to show you how well one of their TV sets can receive OTA. You had better be ready to hear an endless load of BS about why they can't accommodate your request.
The fact is that subscription service providers have invested decades suckering subscribers into believing that they have to pay them for television. Following the digital transition, the most common question asked by cable viewers calling in response to our DTV PSA was: "Isn't it illegal to watch free TV?". The truth is that once viewers see that they can receive 30 to 60 program streams (a dozen in HD) via a small outdoor antenna, they do not cancel their cable subscription. Instead, they install an OTA antenna for at least one TV in their home and then use it to watch one or more of the 3/4ths of OTA local TV channels that are 'not' carried by cable or satellite.
The more a consumer has invested in a high quality HDTV, the more likely that consumer has installed an antenna to insure the highest quality signal for that TV. Any attempt to derail the billions that the broadcast industry has invested in building the digital broadcast infrastructure which now blankets the U.S., will be met by more than some "political" battle. The battle will not be with the broadcast industry, but with millions of pay-TV subscribers (and taxpayers) who finally have found a safety net around being cut-off at any time from essential local media by their friendly TV gatekeeper.
2010 will be a banner year for DTV broadcasters as they re-enter the business of "broadcasting" via mobile TV and other feature-rich OTA services that DTV stations are uniquely equipped to provide. The vast and remarkably cost-efficient radio footprint of a high-power DTV signal at 300 meters AGL cannot be matched by any of the proposed so-called "more efficient" uses of the 0.45 - 0.7 GHz spectrum. Telephone and cable operators do not and cannot offer any competitive equivalent service.
In the year before handheld TV on your cellphone becomes ubiquitous, it is interesting to watch telephone service providers scramble to secure a piece of spectrum to feed their specialized mobile TV channels. The upcoming big controversy will be whether the "All-Channel TV Receiver Act" is to be enforced as it is written. This 1962 law gave the FCC authority to require that all television receivers sold or shipped to the public are capable of receiving all frequencies allocated for television use after April 30, 1964". The law made it illegal to sell or distribute TV receivers capable of receiving only 'selective' frequencies. Now all your members need to do is convince someone that a cellphone with a TV picture on it isn't "really" a TV.
Offering a free, so-called "must carry" cable channel to a local TV station who opts for wired delivery as an alternative to his OTA broadcast transmitter, relegates that "station" to join the myriad of cable channel programmers, each vying for some miniscule market share. Perhaps a nice exit strategy for some failing broadcasters. Trade in your spectrum and receive a piece (indeed, a very small piece) of the local cable company's business. You just have to wonder why the cable industry would stand for this 'taking'.
You may have advocated "must carry" status for DTV broadcasters back in the '90s, Gary, but it was WHDT who actually obtained it. Your claim that "every year fewer Americans rely on the broadcasting spectrum" is not only fallacious, it demonstrates the bias of your members' aptly-named "fairly factual and technically based [years of research]". Perhaps you should factor-in the consumer's interests in your market analysis, since it is they that your members intend to ultimately milk.
Günter Marksteiner, Dipl. Ing.-Dr.
licensee, WHDT-TV
To appreciate Mr. Shapiro's hypocrisy, consider the HDTVs that were available for sale at the start of the decade. 95% of what were available were so-called "HD-ready" televisions that lacked a built in tuner. Supposedly, the owner of one of these televisions could buy an outboard ATSC tuner, but those tuners were sporadically distributed, to put it politely.
I bought one of those HD-ready sets in 2000, and wasn't able to find a tuner to connect to it until almost two years later. And I had to look hard to find that tuner. As a result, even in major markets, the potential audience for digital television broadcasts numbered in the hundreds or low thousands. Any wonder that broadcasters were hesitant to invest heavily in a digital OTA service?
This situation eventually changed -- but only because the FCC mandated the inclusion of digital tuners in new televisions over the objections of Mr. Shapiro's CEA.
The bottom line is that the CEA's members undermined the digital transition far worse than broadcasters did. And they've now apparently concluded that they can make more money by selling subscription wireless devices where they receive kickbacks from the service providers...