Advanced Television Publishing Announces An Important New DTV Survey

16-Nov-00

Advanced Television Publishing (in cooperation with Douglas Sheer) is conducting a new survey of the U.S. television stations to closely examine the DTV transition in the United States.""The survey will not only detail the technical aspects of the transition,"" said ATP President Dale Cripps, ""but also reveal the broadcast executives' attitudes about it.""An executive summary of the results will be published on April 15, just prior to the NAB Convention (April 21, 2001) held in Las Vegas, Nevada, with the full report being offered for sale at the convention or by mail order. Price is $1500 per copy if ordered on or after April 21, 2001.For companies able to benefit from a earlier ""first-look,"" the full report is available April 1, 2001 at an early-window price of $5500 for each copy. Distribution can be made by either PDF download from the ATP Internet Web site, or a traditional hard copy sent by surface mail.""Question contributions are welcome from any of our 'first-look' clients until January 19, 2001."" said ATP Vice President Howard V. Barton.The SurveyThe survey will cover all market sizes and be drawn from 750 station and group station operators selected out of the 1600 U.S. TV license holders of record as of January 1, 2001. Both current DTV operators and those due on the air by mid-2002 will be among those surveyed.A questionnaire and response incentive will be sent to both general managers and chief engineers in those 750 selected sites. Both a paper and Web version for data collection will be employed.What We Will Learn""The most important thing we will learn,"" said Cripps, ""is the broadcasters' real activities which are leading to or away from the transition timeline as mandated by the FCC. I am also honing in on what they have in mind as with respect to Internet/data tie-ins. We will certainly question them extensively about the COFDM/8-VSB controversy (which will be the first survey following the MSTV comparative performance test report due for public release in the first quarter of 2001).""The survey will reveal crucial information as to what H/DTV programming is planned locally (if any) by the individual television stations, when it will/did begin, during what times of the day it will be/is transmitted, and in what scanning and audio format(s) it is sent.""Our survey will also determine the extent of any plans -tentative or firm - for ancillary data-related business applications, contracts, licenses, etc., and any time-lines for their implementation(s), plus specific professional and consumer hardware development still needed for any such plans, and in what form(s) the new data business will likely take, e.g., stationary reception, mobile, or both,"" said Cripps.For further information, contact Dale Cripps at 541 487 4186, or Howard V. Barton at 503 721 7455.