DTVRedAlert.org

This website is a spinoff of Chicago Media Action, and the FCC’s DTV Whistlestop tour comes to Chicago this week:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 13, 2008
NEWS MEDIA CONTACT: Susan Fisenne (202) 418-2502, Email: Susan.Fisenne (at) fcc.gov

COMMISSIONER TATE TO VISIT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS FOR DTV OUTREACH Visit is Part of Nationwide Tour Focusing on Markets with High Levels of Over-the-Air Television Viewers

Washington, DC–FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate announced she will visit Chicago, Illinois, on November 21st to hold two Town Halls on the digital television (DTV) transition. This visit is part of an extensive nationwide initiative the Commission has launched to increase awareness about the upcoming transition to digital television.

WHO: FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate
WHAT: Town Hall on the DTV Transition
WHEN: Friday, November 21, 2008, 9:30 AM-10:30 AM
WHERE: Northwest (Copernicus) Senior Center
3160 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL 60618
RSVP: Merrie Star, Regional Director
312-744-6681(voice)
312-744-0321(TTY)
Email address: mstar (at) cityofchicago.org

WHO: FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate
WHAT: Town Hall on the DTV Transition
WHEN: Friday, November 21, 2008, 2:00PM –3:00PM
WHERE: Kennedy-King College
The Black Box Theater
740 West 63rd Street
The U Bldg (Between Halsted Street and Green Street)
Chicago, Illinois, 60621
Free parking is available in any of the four school parking lots
RSVP: Marv Dyson
773-602-5544
Email address: Marvdyson (at) aol.com

The FCC identified target television markets for specific DTV outreach, including all those markets in which more than 100,000 households or at least 15% of the households rely solelyon over-the-air signals for television reception. The five FCC Commissioners and senior Commission staff will visit these and other markets to raise awareness and educate consumers in the days leading up to the DTV transition on February 17, 2009.

Reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities are available upon request. Include a description of the accommodation you will need with as much detail as possible. Also include a waywe can contact you if we need more information. Please provide as much advance notice as possible; last minute requests will be accepted, but maybe impossible to fill. Send an e-mailto fcc504 (at) fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY).

News about the Federal Communications Commission can also be found on the Commission’s web site www.fcc.gov

From Gizmodo:

One email that arrived a while back had an interesting discussion of the broadcast digital TV conversion and its connections to cable television and PEG [public, educational and government] cable channels. The email is worth sharing, I think, so here it, reposted below:

The DTV transition date for Feb 2009 only concerns broadcast television and therefore has no direct or immediate impact on PEG and Cable Leased access. Local broadcasters, as I understand it, will still be carried on cable under must carry rules (but likely as SD and not HD channels). Of course cable companies have been misleading consumers into thinking they need to subscribe to cable to still use their analog TV’s - but that’s another story.

The date for cable transition to all digital is set for Feb 2011 (pending further FCC review). Some cable companies have already gone all digital in advance of this date - and that’s where we’ve seen ‘channel slamming’ of PEG channels to the 900 range of the digital band. Depending on the local/state franchise - this behavior may or not be legal (many franchises were written years ago and couldn’t have anticipated this). Same for bandwidth allocations for PEG channels - some franchises wrote in an 8Mhz allocation for each PEG channel under analog carriage (bandwidth which could accommodate up to 4-6 additional channels in the digital band). Some franchises do have provisions for increased channel capacity when the system goes digital - but this is usually no more than double the current amount. It’s unlikely any PEG system will get the full bandwidth now allocated to their analog channels when the systems go digital. And - we expect that cable companies will continue to feed PEG channels at sub-standard bandwidth rates when they can get away with it (they’ll certainly attempt this in digital as they have for analog). I would also be surprised to see an PEG channel be given HD carriage - though those with 8Mhz allocations written into their franchises could certainly accommodate it if allowed to keep that bandwidth.

As for the last question - many PEG systems do partner in programming to some extent - or accept non-local content. Given more channel capacity it’s conceivable more of that type of programming would be possible - but it’s really the call of the local centers to make.

My pet peeve is more with basic service rates. Under local franchises, the municipalities have some oversight over basic TV rates to ensure that low-income and seniors have affordable access to basic analog cable service (which includes the PEG channels). Under state franchises, municipalities lose this oversight and as a result basic service tiers have sky-rocketed. We’ve also seen some of these rate increases in the change-overs to digital cable - with the required basic rate for analog out of the picture, the digital basic package comes in at a much higher cost. But even in areas that still have local franchises and affordable basic rates - getting this info from the cable company is nearly impossible as these rates are often unadvertised, unspoken and left off web sites entirely. I spent nearly an hour on the phone once trying to get at this information in one service area.

take care,

Michael

Exhibit A from the Chicago Tribble:

It soon will be a Bozo no-no to have a TV that gets its picture through an old-fashioned non-digital signal.

So while it was reported here earlier that every TV station in town plans to participate in five-minute tests on Wednesday at 6:53 a.m. and 5:23 p.m. to enable viewers to see if they’re still relying on the analog signal that will be discontinued on Feb. 17, WGN-Ch. 9 is bringing back Bozo the Clown to help out those whose sets aren’t ready for the digital switch.

WGN viewers whose sets are ready for the digital signal will receive on-screen confirmation, thanks to a digital tuner, converter box, cable or satellite hook-up or some other means. The others will get Bozo.

“It’s me, your ol’ pal Boze, a big part of WGN’s glorious past, with an important message for you about the future of WGN,” the clown (played by George Pappas) will say. “If you can see me right now, that means you’re NOT ready for America’s conversion to DTV, digital television.”

Exhibit B from our friends at DIYMedia.net:

WTF? The best way FCC Chairman Kevin Martin can think of to "educate the public" about the oncoming DTV transition is to sponsor a NASCAR driver? Outside of the fact that this expenditure, according to the available evidence, is arbitrary and capricious, and the average NASCAR race is only watched by eight of the 300-odd million citizens in this country, the first race FCC-sponsored driver David Gilliand competed in after signing his FCC sponsorship ended in an early crash. It’s pretty emblematic of the FCC’s handling of the DTV transition process in and of itself.

Tuesday, October 28, 6:00 – 8:15 p.m.

The Final 100 Days of the DTV Transition – Ready? Set? Go!!!

The Mass Media and Engineering and Technical Practice Committees will hold a CLE Seminar entitled The Final 100 Days of the DTV Transition – Ready? Set? Go!!! on Tuesday, October 28, 2008, from 6:00 – 8:15 p.m. at WilmerHale, 1875 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

Are you worried about helping your client navigate the final days of the digital television (DTV) transition? What are the lessons you and your clients should take away from the recently completed DTV conversion in Wilmington, North Carolina? Join two distinguished panels to address these and many other DTV transition issues. The panelists will discuss the latest on coordinating with local cable systems and DBS providers to ensure your client’s DTV signals are being received; the last round of filings for stations unable to complete construction of their Appendix B facilities by February 17, 2009; and information educating viewers through the use of the 100-day countdown, viewer notifications, and soft-test shutoffs.

The CLE will also feature a “Lesson from Wilmington” segment that will include a discussion about the consumer education options that appeared to be most effective in getting the message about the transition out and in what areas improvement is needed. In addition, the event will include a review of the published reports of various technical reception problems encountered by viewers after the Wilmington conversion and various practical solutions that can be used by stations in advance of February 17 to head off some of these problems. The panel will review various resources available to stations to assist in educating their viewers to implement these solutions and, time permitting, will include a demonstration of the proper way to install a converter box and indoor antenna.

AGENDA

6:00 – 6:05 Welcome and Introduction of Panelists and Moderator

David O’Connor, Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP

6:05 – 7:05 Topic 1 – Technical Challenges for Stations

Moderator: John Burgett, Wiley Rein LLP
Panelists: David Donovan, Association for Maximum Service Television, Inc.
Jack Goodman, WilmerHale
Eloise Gore, Federal Communications Commission
Dianne Smith, Fox Television Stations, Inc.

7:05 – 7:15 Break

7:15 – 8:15 Topic 2 –Wilmington: What We Learned and How To Teach America About Boxes, Antennas and Beyond

Moderator: Parul Desai, Media Access Project

Panelists: Jonathan Collegio, National Association of Broadcasters
Mark Lloyd, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
Cathy Seidel, Federal Communications Commission
Dennis Wallace, Meintel Sgrignoli & Wallace

The audio is in roughly half-hour chunks in MP3 format, from the panel on DTV conversion at the Flow TV conference held in October 7-9, 2008 at the University of Texas at Austin. Enjoy:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me like Comcast is trying to take advantage of the DTV conversion, or something…

Vindication:

Hi everyone - Tracy Rosenberg with Media Alliance in the San Francisco/Oakland, California region here. We were lucky enough to be the third stop (after Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska) in the run-around-the-country tour by the FCC Commissioners. We were happy to learn that our visiting commissioner would be Jonathan Adelstein, but less happy to find out the details of the planned tour a whopping 8 days before arrival. There were 4 public events, a press conference at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center on September 10th, and 3 open events in San Francisco on the 11th, one at the Geen Mun Community Center in Chinatown, one at the Mission Neighborhood Services Center and one out at a community center in the Bayview District.

What did we learn? We learned that its amazingly easy to get the broadcast media to cover the potential loss broadcast media. (Based on the press coverage we got from one simple press release; wars pale in comparison).

We also learned that Comcast, the dominant Bay Area cable provider, was not one to let a business opportunity slide through their fingers, as they befriended the Chinatown and Mission district hosts, and flooded both facilities with an armada of literature designed to look quite similar to both the government information sheets and the LCCR (Leadership Conference on Civil Rights) materials.

Comcast went a little further at the Mission District event (the Mission is a heavily Latino neighborhood in San Francisco) and sent door barkers, removed the literature from the room onto a patio and set up a physical gauntlet of folks with Comcast literature up and down the entrance to the facility - making it possible to enter and leave without ever encountering any literature but theirs.

I physically fixed this by walking inside and handing each person the public materials. Without that effort and given the amount of walkouts halfway through, probably more than a few people would have been convinced that the “only simple solution” to the D-TV transition is to subscribe to cable.

Enclosed are some accompanying materials:

Comcast Literature: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31264830@N06/

Op-Ed: http://www.media-alliance.org/admin/story.php?mode=edit&sid=20080907201450231

Audio Interview on KQED (NPR): http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R809111730

Press Release: http://www.media-alliance.org/article.php?story=20080904185547968

Bruce Dixon, whose writings on DTV have been taking flight at the website for Black Agenda Report, wrote a very useful call-to-arms for the whistlestop tour in Atlanta, but can be useful for other tour stop as well .

The FCC, working on behalf of commercial broadcasters instead carrying out its lawful duty to safeguard the public interest in the publicly owned broadcast airwaves, is waging a deceptive and misleading “public education” campaign on the nationwide scheduled advent of digital TV on February 19, 2009.

The FCC’s message concentrates exclusively on converter boxes and high-definition TV, as if it’s really important for us to see the nose hairs of NBA free throw shooters. Essentially the FCC is only telling us what we need to know to be passive consumers.

Among the things the FCC is not telling us are

* The number of TV stations will multiply (from the present 1700 nationally) four to ten times;

* Only the well-connected insiders who already have station licenses get the new stations — a brand new property right has been carved from the carcass of the commons for them;

* The new stations come with essentially NO obligations for news, public service or localism;

* Broadcasters have little or no useful programming to put on the stations, and even if they did it might compete with their existing programming;

* Existing broadcast licensees pay less for a station license than an ordinary person pays to license a used car in Georgia

* No women, no minorities, no local community groups, colleges, unions, have been given a chance to get any of these stations;

The FCC has announced an 80 city tour of US cities in which commissioners will be asking and answering questions about the transition to digital TV. Some are calling it the “We’re Not Listening” Tour, because the FCC is revealing exact locations of these affairs only at the last moment.

Show up and ask the FCC Commissioner some real questions, like

* Why were minorities, women, and not for profits who might have been interested in operating TV stations themselves excluded?

* How did the FCC abandon the one-channel, one license scheme and grant multiple licenses to broadcasters without public notice?

* Why don’t broadcasters have any meaningful public service obligations?

* Are the public airwaves really owned by the public, or by the broadcasters who get their licenses for free?

* Will the FCC take back the channels if the broadcasters do not live up to their promises of new and diverse and meaningful educational and public service content?

* Why is the FCC only telling us what we need to know to be good and passive consumers?

There WILL be cameras, but the media notoriously do not cover issues that educate the people on media affairs. So maybe some of us will have to bring our own. Come with questions for the FCC commissioner.

For some background on this issue
Grand Theft Digital; How Corporate Broadcasters Are Hijacking Digital TV by Bruce Dixon
The FCC and the Emperors of TV Have No Clothes by Bruce Dixon
FCC Announces 80 City “We’re Not Listening” Digital TV Tour by Bruce Dixon
Big Media Steals 5,100 Digital TV Channels by Glen Ford
Bruce Dixon Black Agenda Report 404-797-2087

Bruce A. Dixon
Managing Editor,
Black Agenda Report
www.blackagendareport.com