Mr. WALDEN. I thank my ranking subcommittee chairman for the time.
Let me get right at it. The 1996 law that this law replaced said that when the marketplace had 85 percent of households with one television that could receive digital, this transition could occur.
The law that we passed a couple of years ago said, no, we are going to work this a little differently. We will set a hard date, we will make coupons available to do all of this. Currently, 94.3 percent of American households have a television that receives digital or that has the ability to receive digital signal.
So remember the old law that we updated said 85 percent could make this change today, or 94 percent. Only exclusively over-the-air homes without a digital division or converter box are at risk of losing all television service. Now, again, Nielsen, the rating service, says there are 3.4 million exclusively over-the-air homes, and already we have sent 13.5 million coupons to 13.5 million of those homes, leaving 800,000 exclusively over-the-air households that have not yet received the coupons.
Approximately 600,000 of them, however, are on the waiting list. This all gets down to a couple hundred thousand people. This could simple easily be solved by simply changing the accounting rules and allowing NTIA to go ahead and send out those coupons.
Mr. Speaker, I would also like to include for the Record letters from television stations in Oregon who point out that this delay will cost them upwards of $1 million in added energy costs at a time when they are having to lay off staff who do news coverage and other things because now they are going to get saddled with this burden, $500,000 to $1 million.
January 8, 2009. Hon. GREG WALDEN, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC.
DEAR GREG, I hope this note finds you well. This letter is in reference to the possible delay of the DTV transition date for broadcasters from the scheduled date of February 17, 2009. Changing the date at this time would unravel a tremendous amount of work done by broadcasters to educate consumers about DTV, and most likely do more harm than good.
Attached find a list of issues from our Director of Engineering, Karl Sargent, related to the possible change of dates.
We hope you have success in keeping the date we have all been working towards, and please do not hesitate to let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely, BOB WISE,
Vice President/General Manager, KOBI-TV/KOTI-TV.
DELAY of DIGITAL TRANSITION We feel the delay of the digital transition is not in the best interests of the viewer, broadcaster, or country in general.
Delaying the transition will place doubt and uncertainty in the mind of the public. We have been diligently informing them of the positive benefits of the transition and it will now place doubt in their mind that technologically, it is not ready or up to its promises of improved TV performance.
Stations have spent a lot of money in their digital facilities, allowing the analog facilities to deteriorate. It would be more cost to the broadcasters to now have to invest money into keeping the analog transmitters operating in parallel with the digital transmitters or they have to invest in short-term capital to keep the transmitters running (i.e. KOTI driver tube failure).
Delaying the transition for months will not rectify the public not being ready for the transition. In fact, it may make it worse. The public will feel that they now have time to back off their efforts to prepare. No matter when the transition takes place there are going to be viewers who are not prepared.
We need to make this transition now and get on to other critical items the stations have to do. In our case it is the capital improvement we still need to do to our station infrastructure to convert it to full digital and HD and to complete the Sprint-Nextel project.
We don't see any positives to the transition being delayed. We have been preparing for it for 5 years.
We are very concerned that the incoming administration will change the baseline rules and specifications of the digital transition. That would be a disaster in both money and time for both the viewers and broadcasters. --
January 9, 2009. To: Congressman Greg Walden, Second District, Oregon. Fr: Jerry Upham, General Manager, KOHD Bend.
DEAR CONGRESSMAN, I was both shocked and disappointed to hear that Congress is considering delaying the implementation of the digital transition for television stations. With so much publicity and planning for this ``hard date,'' any change would result in huge consumer confusion, and give the indication that there really is no hard deadline. In addition, millions of consumers will feel like they were incorrectly advised--in a tough economic time--to spend money now to be able to receive their television signals.
At Chambers Communications, we've spent millions of dollars for this digital transition, and, in the case of KOHD, launched the station in 2006 with an exclusively digital signal. The decision to launch without a full power analog signal was made due to this upcoming deadline. KOHD has gone without an analog signal, and has sacrificed analog viewers during this time. If the deadline is pushed back, this will only extend the station's analog deficiency. Had we had an indication that this deadline would be extended, the company may have made a different decision with regard to an analog signal.
Please urge Congress not to extend this deadline, as both the private television sector and the public will be severely negatively affected by this decision.
Sincerely,
Jerry Upham, KOHD General Manager. --
January 9, 2009.
CONGRESSMAN WALDEN, thanks for including local broadcasters.
(1.) Tower lease agreements will have to be extended to continue to provide some outlying areas with analog.
(2.) We'll have to continue to operate two transmitters. (a.) Increase cost (b.) More energy consumption.
(3.) February ratings moved to March, making March non-useable.
(4.) People not ready today won't be ready in 3, 6 or 9 months unless forced to change because of the end of analog service.
(5.) All our efforts to inform the public for nothing and more confusion. If we change the date once, what's to say we don't change it again?
(6.) No credibility with the public.
(7.) Angry people who have already purchased new TVs, converter boxes or subscribed to cable or satellite adding extra expense.
I get the political road the new administration is following, but to change would only prolong the pain.
Thank you, CHRISTOPHER T. GALLU,
General Manager, NPG of Oregon, Inc. --
January 9, 2009. Hon. GREG WALDEN, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
DEAR CONGRESSMAN WALDEN: I strongly urge Congress to resist changing the digital transition date of February 17, 2009. Broadcasters around the country have been mandated by the FCC to provide unprecedented promotion and news coverage of this important date. Millions of Americans have responded with obtaining coupons, calling broadcasters for information and preparing for this important milestone in the broadcasting industry. To delay implementation at this late juncture will most certainly confuse the American public even further. In addition, millions of consumers will feel they were misled and incorrectly advised, during these tough economic times, to spend money now to be able to receive their television signals. In addition, this will put an extra burden on broadcasters in the form of additional power usage for transmitters and man power.
Chambers Communications has invested millions of dollars for the digital transition and countless man-hours in its implementation and preparation for the Feb. 17 cut-off. I urge you to rebuff attempts to extend the deadline at this late date.
Sincerely, RENARD N. MAIURI,
General Manager, KDRV/KDKF TV. [Page: H590]
--
January 8, 2009. Congressman GREG WALDEN, Washington, DC.
DEAR CONGRESSMAN WALDEN, I am writing to implore you to retain the digital transition date of February 17, 2009, for which we have been planning and preparing.
At the beginning of the transition, I was not in favor of a hard shut-off deadline, preferring that the market decide when analog was no longer needed. However, now that we have committed hundreds of hours of time to prepare for this change, invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to enable us to change, and literally broadcast thousands of announcements, all focused on this date, I believe that changing would be a mistake.
The key to successful implementation of any change, including a historic change such as this one, is communication. The efforts of local broadcasters to inform the viewers have reached beyond news stories, announcements, and crawls over programming, to in-person demonstrations, community talks, and talking to callers to walk through the unique needs for their location in their individual situation.
Broadcast television is my livelihood, so I don't take this position lightly. If this transition fails, and viewers lose access to free-over-the-air-TV, it will damage our ability to broadcast to the communities we are licensed to serve. Our best chance to succeed is to stick with this heavily promoted date, and trust that we will do whatever it takes to insure that all of our viewers are not left behind in the digital age.
Sincerely, KINGSLEY KELLEY,
General Manager, KTLV-TV. --
February 8, 2009. Hon. Greg Walden, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
DEAR CONGRESSMAN WALDEN: I am deeply concerned and shocked that some in the Congress are considering delaying the nationwide DTV transition that is scheduled for February 17, 2009. I understand the concern given that the distribution of coupons has been suspended and those still wishing to receive a coupon have been put on a waiting list pending the authorization of additional funds. I urge you and other members of Congress to push for legislation that would immediately provide the necessary funds to fulfill the additional requested coupons.
This station has been planning for this DTV transition for over a year and along with my fellow broadcasters has been educating the public on this transition. Collectively the Medford market broadcast stations have run thousands of announcements regarding the transition and have also engaged in educating the public through numerous outreach activities. There will always be people that wait to the last moment or have not prepared themselves for the transition even though they know it is coming, and no delay is going to mitigate that problem.
Procedures are in place for helping the public with any problems they may incur during this transition and our engineers are ready to make the transition on February 17, 2009.
Given the amount of time we have spent educating the public that February 17, 2009 is the firm date, I believe that changing that date will cause an enormous amount of confusion and do great harm to an orderly transition.
Even if the date was changed for the transition we will not change our plans to transition on February 17, 2009.
Sincerely, GARY D. JONES,
General Manager, KMVU-TV.
Some of these stations, one of them is brand new, KOHD in Bend, went on air as digital only in anticipation of this date. And now this Congress apparently is going to move the date.
And then in the so-called stimulus bill we are going to borrow maybe $600 million, maybe from the Chinese, I don't know, that the next generation will get to pay back whenever that occurs so we can send out more coupons. This is a solution looking for a problem.
