FCC Considers Changes To DTV

This time, the Federal Communications Commission is discussing plans that may take away many of the new channels provided through DTV, as well as eliminate future digital upgrades planned by the broadcast industry. Broadcasters are not happy about it.

Harry Delaney, Vice President and General Manager of WHIO-TV said, “It’s really critical for us to be able to offer our viewers the promise of the full digital experience and all the things that digital can offer them as a broadcaster. We would hope that allocation is honored.”

The plan could shrink the current broadcast spectrum and sell part of it off to cell phone and wireless companies. That might eliminate channels such as 7 Weather Now (DTV 7.2) - extra channels that the government told consumers would be a big benefit of the DTV switch.

Dan Getts is an audio and video specialist at Morris Home Furnishings. He said it sounds like the feds are going back on the agreement to provide space for the additional channels.

Getts said, “They’re hindering the ability of stations to do the things that they have done, entertainment, news, the services they have provided to the community by trying to outsource that to more private endeavors, where there might be some money to be made by the government.”

Among the plans reportedly under discussion by the FCC, one that would leave stations with so little spectrum that they would only be able to broadcast a single standard definition signal - eliminating high definition broadcast TV. There is even talk about eliminating over-the-air broadcasting altogether, forcing people to get television from satellite, cable or some other provider - with the government providing some type of subsidy for consumers.

Delaney said, “I can’t imagine a world where we don’t have free over-the-air television serving our local communities and we intend to have full spectrum to do that.”

Congress is expected to have the final say over any FCC decision to change the current broadcast spectrum.