Kennard Gives Little Comfort To Broadcasters

By George Leopold, EE Times

12-Apr-00

Federal Communications Commission chairman William Kennard pressed US broadcasters to jump on the digital bandwagon or risk being left behind by aggressive media competitors.In his keynote speech to the National Association of Broadcasters' NAB 2000 convention, Kennard also excoriated radio broadcasters for resisting FCC efforts to create non-commercial low-power FM radio stations and dismissed their concerns about channel interference. Kennard also offered little relief to station owners who are pressing the FCC to compel cable operators to carry broadcasters' digital TV signals over their systems. Addressing the slow rollout of digital TV, Kennard avoided the fray over whether to reopen the US transmission standard, and instead pressed broadcasters to plunge into digital broadcasts or risk irrelevance in the digital era. ""This transition to digital [TV] is inevitable,"" Kennard said. ""We are not going back to analog. Analog is over."" The FCC chief urged broadcasters to develop new business models that will speed the digital transition rather than relying on the government to do it for them. For instance, he said broadcasters were in an ideal position to break the bottlenecks on the Internet for content delivery. ""No industry is better positioned than broadcasting to transmit content that is frequently accessed to the end user,"" Kennard said. He also called the growing number of partnerships between broadcasters and content and spectrum aggregators like iBlast and Geocast ""a marriage waiting to happen."" The partnerships between broadcasters and content providers are expected to take off after the FCC auctions 700MHz of spectrum now occupied by TV channels 60 through 69. Once that spectrum is put to use, Kennard predicted it would ""accelerate convergence and speed the DTV transition."" A key stumbling block to consumer acceptance of digital TV has been lack of cable carriage of digital signals. The NAB has been pressing the FCC for several years to compel cable operators to carry broadcasters' digital signals. Cable operators have resisted on constitutional grounds. Kennard didn't offer broadcasters much hope on the ""must carry"" issue. ""What's the right balance?"" he asked. ""It's always a balance of equities and rights."" He added that broadcasters may be expecting too much from the FCC to seek cable carriage of both analog and digital signals ""before we know how fast [digital] services will be rolled out. ""We're not going to rush to judgement on the must carry issue,"" Kennard said. The controversy over the FCC plan to provide spectrum for low-power FM radio stations continued as a dominant issue at the convention, and Kennard used his speech to blast broadcasters for their failure to work with the agency. Broadcasters who have taken the FCC to court on the issue argue that the new stations will generate adjacent channel interference with full-power stations. Kennard would have none of it. ""Why, amidst all this opportunity for broadcasters, have you chosen to muster your considerable resources to deny churches and schools and community-based organizations just a little piece of the broadcast pie?"" he asked NAB members. ""Why, when these non-commercial voices do not in any way threaten the existence of full power stations?"" Radio executives here nevertheless pressed Kennard on whether the new low-power stations would create interference. ""There will be no harmful interference [to] existing FM stations,"" he responded. The interference issue has become a ""battle of the engineers, [but] we know a lot about the FM service."" Welcome WordsTo boost the FCC's credibility on the low-power interference issues, Kennard stressed that he has shut down more pirate FM stations than any other FCC chairman. The assertion drew the only applause during his speech. Congress was expected to vote on legislation later this week designed to slow the creation of low-power FM stations. Nevertheless, Kennard said the FCC's review of the issue would continue.