[opendtv] News: Markey: Feb. 17 DTV Date May Have To Move
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 07:37:31 -0500
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/CA6627445.html
Markey: Feb. 17 DTV Date May Have To Move
Obama FCC transition team also floating idea, sources say
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/7/2009 7:59:00 PM
The DTV hard date appears to be softening.
Consumers Union (CU) late Wednesday asked the heads of the
congressional committees with telecommunications oversight, as well
as the current and future administrations, to consider delaying the
Feb. 17, 2009 transition date.
And at least one of those key Congressional players, Rep. Ed Markey
(D-Mass.), chairman of the House Telecommunications & Internet
Subcommittee, says the date may have to move.
In a letter to Rep. Markey, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the
incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committe, and
others, the CU requested that Congress consider a delay "until a plan
is in place to minimize the number of consumers who will lose TV
signals, particularly by fixing the flaws in the federal coupon
program created to offset the cost of this transition."
The National Telecommunications & Information Administration this
week announced that it had hit the funding ceiling for its program to
distribute government subsidies for DTV-to-analog converter boxes and
that new applications would have to be put on a waiting list unless
the cap were raised or the Antideficiency Act (ADA) rule preventing
it from spending money it expected to be freed up by expired coupons
was waived.
"Congressman Markey is working on an exemption to the ADA to deal
with the immediate waiting list issue," said Daniel Reilly, a
spokesman for Markey. "But with the date looming, moving the date
back certainly warrants further discussion and may be a wise choice."
According to several sources, the Obama FCC transition team has been
"very busy" on the issue and has been floating the possibility of
moving the date. The transition press office had not returned an
e-mail request for comment at press time.
Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst for Consumers Union and one of the two
signatories on the letter, said CU had met with the transition team
about the issue, and that they are "rightly concerned that this is a
mess that they are now going to have to clean up in a very short time
frame."
He would not comment on whether they favored moving the date beyond
only saying that the transition team has been "extremely active on
the DTV transition issue." He said the Obama transition team had not
asked Consumers Union to send the letter.
Consumers Union has suggested a move of four months or so, according
to a CNBC interview with CU senior counsel Chris Murray, the other
signature on the CU letter. Murray told CNBC that he thought there
was a "reasonably good chance" that Congress would push the date back
four months or so. "We're not ready to say there will be a delay
yet," he said. "We believe that Congress should consider a delay
[but] I don't think I can talk about this as something that is
readily going to happen," he said.
Perhaps, but the Washington lobbying community was buzzing Wednesday
with talk that it was a real possibility.
In an e-mail alert from communications law firm Wilkinson Barker
Knauer obtained by B&C, the Murray CNBC interview was cited
prominently, with lawyers there saying they were hearing that
"serious consideration" was being given to moving the date to June 1
(Memorial Day weekend) and suggesting more trial balloons would be
floated in the coming days.
According to the lobbyist, the new administration is not looking
forward to inheriting a transition with major issues about viewers
not receiving their subsidies in time. That would include target
populations like senior citizens, minorities and the disabled.
It would be tough to make the move at this late date. The
broadcasting and cable industries and the government have spent
hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and donated airtime on
hammering home that Feb. 17 date, putting it on Web sites,
billboards, and even a race car. Some broadcasters have already made
the switch early (Wilmington, N.C.), or are about to (Hawaii on Jan.
15), and some of the spectrum has already been auctioned for advanced
services.
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