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Making a bad situation worse: FCC Delays DTV Transition, Sort-of.
9-Feb-2009
TIA Ukiah
Last week, Congress passed the “DTV Delay Act,” that would extend the date for the completion of the DTV transition from February 17, 2009, to June 12, 2009. Sort of.
The public notice from the FCC has been posted, and the only thing that has become clear is that the transition is not going to be clear.
The original date, although poorly chosen (middle of winter when TV towers and sites are difficult to access, and TV programming is in its fully competitive ratings period), at least everyone could be prepared for a single event on a single day at a precise time.
Now, it appears that the event will be spread over several months, willy-nilly.
For local viewers this means that we're not really sure when our originating stations will switch over, so a greater level of outage is likely to occur. This same problem is true for cable operators as well.
As always, we'll try to keep you informed as we learn more.
FCC Notice:
FCC Announces Procedures Regarding Termination of Analog Television Service On or After February 17, 2009
February 5, 2009 PUBLIC NOTICE: FCC 09-6
Termination Notifications for February 17, 2009 Must Be Filed By Monday, February 9 The Federal Communications Commission is issuing this Public Notice to announce the procedures that full-power television broadcast stations must follow if they wish to terminate their analog television broadcast service on or after February 17, 2009 – the previous deadline for the digital television (“DTV”) transition established by the Digital Television and Public Safety Act of 2005 (“DTV Act”) — in the event that the extension of the deadline is enacted into law. Yesterday, the United States Congress passed legislation, known as the “DTV Delay Act,” that would extend the date for the completion of the DTV transition from February 17, 2009, to June 12, 2009.
Congress extended the transition date in order to permit analog service to continue until consumers have had additional time to prepare. But we also recognize that Congress directed the Commission to provide flexibility for stations wanting to transition prior to the new date. Stations may have made extensive preparations for a February 17 digital transition and some may have difficulty altering their commitments at this time. The Commission’s challenge is to provide opportunities for some stations to end analog broadcasting early without sacrificing the goal of giving consumers additional time to prepare. Accordingly, and in light of the fact that the previous February 17 deadline is less than two weeks away, the Commission finds it appropriate to announce immediately through this Public Notice the procedures that stations must follow if they wish to terminate their analog service on February 17, 2009, notwithstanding extension of the nationwide DTV transition deadline to June 12.