CBS Threatens To Shut Down HDTV

By Dale Cripps(reprinted with permission from HDTV Magazine)

20-Dec-02

This headline is waiting to scream its distorted message across the nation. Why? CBS has threatened to pull out of HDTV broadcasting next season should copy protection measures--a so called ""broadcast flag""--not be agreed upon and established in hardware NOW. What is the problem? CBS claims that they urgently need this agreement to protect their content from redistribution across the Internet. Why the new rush? The market, they say in their filing to the FCC, is about to explode for HDTV. CBS can no longer afford to wait. Winston Churchill said that in times of gravest dangers the boldest steps may prove to be the safest. CBS is following this strategy by attempting to use a classic blackmail approach to force the obstructionist's hand. It could be a fatal strategy (to HDTV and the transition). If Philips, the chief obstructionists to the agreement I am told, calls their bluff, HDTV could be set back ten years, if not made dead. It is hoped by CBS that we owners, along with Congress and the FCC, will rise up and raise hell with these obstructionists and batter down their defenses. Remember the punitive push-ups the innocent had to do in boot camp? They were by design to make us roust out the bad apples in our ranks using the energy produced by the anger from the punitive injustice. We innocent HDTV owners of America are being roused to anger so we can wake up Philips (and their sympathizers). We are supposed to understand that our loss of CBS programming is all due to those cantankerous European CE folks. I do feel a little anger, come to think of it, but where to direct it still eludes me. Read on and we may find the right culprits upon which to bestow our digital fury.In defense of CBS they have gone to war only as a last resort. The fact that the ""Tiffany"" network sees the ""tipping point"" coming (meaning it is about to reach that infectious stage) is cause for celebration. On the other hand we must understand these actions. If CBS's program suppliers are not willing to write HDTV-use rights into next season's contracts because there is no copy or redistribution protection, what else is there to be done? Viacom has done all that it can through legitimate channels. Their work in committees has been endless, if not tireless. Their report making is prodigious, if not tedious, and their testimony before Congress has been forthright. Let none in our ranks forget either that it was CBS who stepped-up to the plate with their entire prime time scripted slate and dozens of expensive sports shots. Go back further and you cannot forget that it was Joe Flaherty of CBS who shepherded the entire thing. I give CBS high marks on their report card. Now they need an agreement so they can buy the programs we want to see. What's our position?I have learned that the NFL won't cut a deal for HDTV rights until their signal is protected from Internet redistribution. All scripted television shows seek a life in syndication after their first licensing and fear they will be made valueless if they wind up on countless servers waiting for a Morpheus-like cues to download them. It is becoming clearer by the day that there is an overabundance of bandwidth (dark fiber) with the only obstruction to its massive use in delivering substantially higher data rates is the ""last mile"" technology/cost, something the wireless folks are working furiously to eliminate. ""Fair Use"" Not An IssueCBS, nor their program suppliers, are expressing the least bit of concern over ""fair use"" home recording rights nor even redistribution via data networks within the home. They still puzzle over how to manage e-mail retransmission to friends and relatives, which they support under the principal of ""fair use,"" but worry as to how it can be kept from finding its way to the Web. Philips has taken the stand that any copy protection of broadcast material is inconsistent with what the consumer has become accustomed to. This new infringement--the broadcast flag--is, therefore, objectionable/unacceptable. The Plot ThickensViacom believes that CEA president Gary Shapiro has jumped ship to the ""Dark Side."" In addition to strong statements in favor of consumer recording rights Shapiro has opposed the mandated ATSC tuner because cost is added to all for something cable subscribers will likely never use. (This argument won't be aired more here until we have our end-of-year interview with Gary Shapiro, which is tentatively scheduled for this week or next.) We will get the update on all of related issues at that time, at least as seen from ""the dark side"" of the force. I, of course, jest here for Gary's last words to me in email suggests that his faith in a positive outcome for HDTV has not wavered regardless of the waves of contrary opinion (that he turns a deaf ear to) from within his own ranks. Any retreat by CBS from HDTV would be very newsworthy and horrendously costly, if not fatal to much of the broadcast industry and all of the HDTV movement. Any number of interpretations as to why CBS ""really did it"" would surface (as they did on our forums just after this announcement) and with half-truths raised to certitudes the fearful would beat their own hasty retreat before its too late. Since every data broadcast application has failed to produce a viable business strategy HDTV is the only part of the digital broadcasting transition that is capable of moving the consumer. It has been clear to all seasoned observers that the transition would hit the skids with any weakening of HDTV anywhere in the long chain. Conversely, it gains strength upon every solidifying action taken. What reason is left to buy an ATSC 8VSB 19.3 Mbps decoder if HDTV fails? That is, after all, the signal/decoder that is specifically mandated by the FCC. If it is found not marketable without HDTV and a move became successful to rescind the FCC ruling mandating it, another ten years would elapse before an assault on digital would be welcome. Each of the least little wobbles over the last four years nearly capsized the movement and there are broadcasters all over this nation who still do not understand why we are going into digital in the first place except to provide, at broadcasters' expense, some spectrum relief for other industries. Retailers are already suffering from expensive returns from their HDTV set sales. People are taking them home clueless about their need for adding a decoder, antennas, satellite dishes, etc., and so the returning of them in large numbers is reportedly occurring because the bigger images appear to neophyte customers even worse than from their old traditional 27-inch. I don't have hard figures on the returns but so much comes to me anecdotally that the real fire cannot be far off. If the New York Times were to pick up on this CBS story and run the headline ""CBS And All Viacom Companies To Back Out Of HDTV"" gasps would be heard around the world and stores would be flooded with sets out on a 30-day return policy. That would signal the end of this market cycle. Those doubting it may not yet appreciate the gravis of the NTSC standard. With a triumphant trumpet only inches from their lips the NTSC folks could herald their return to power in a gloating heartbeat and with the full force of their marketing powers rushing behind them in lockstep support. We five percent of the public who have purchased HDTV could easily be written off as the lunatic fringe while some form of compatible enhanced NTSC leaps into the foreground looking about like Fox Widescreen and laying claim to the image future. Of course, this is only the darkest of speculations and not the scenario which serious people believe will come about. That should not stop us from seeing a threat in this move by CBS and give us renewed reason to keep alert. No opportunity to advance HDTV on a friendly basis can we afford to squander. Under all circumstances every opportunity must be seized to further the true HDTV movement along with its far greater promise if it is to succeed. Digital Rights And Wrongs...The fact remains that a broadcast flag is going to be compromised technically and the same threat we have today from CBS will be hanging over our heads indefinitely unless WE do something to insure that hardware or not the rights of others will be fully respected. If your finger prints are on the misuse of software then strong laws with teeth need to insure that you have officially ended your career as a free man or woman. We have learned that the same thing that benefits our daily lives, i.e., technology, also gives tremendous leverage to a malcontent. No longer is it required that nation must rise against nation before social chaos occurs but rather now one man with a cell phone can do it! Every single pillar in our future world is being built on the foundation of ones and zeros--coded software. If we fail to take steps now to establish a social conscious about the importance of this fact then ripping it to shreds will be just another high stakes thrill-sport. This sport is already well developed and hackers unite in clubs and organizations encouraging such behavior. It's like hunting elephants--you know you shouldn't do it for the reasons we all understand but the trophy is irresistible. The only countermeasure to these mischief makers is the instilling of a new social vision and compact with the general public that is intolerant of any misuse of our 21st century of Holy Water--digital code. Only the poorest of minds today would take holy water and use it for desecration. There is respect in every drop in the hearts of most citizens of the world--even the atheistic--which had to be spawned by the reverence held out for it over the centuries. Not the hardened criminal, not the rebellious juvenile, not the social misfit stoops to pollute Holy Water. We certainly should find the way to preserve digital rights in a like manner. It is critical that we develop this respect now so as not to cheat future generations out the benefits that the seeds of today can produce in their maturity. What we are doing now--the outcome and direction springing out of this revolution--will cast a long shadow into the future. When we see such mindless misuse of this new currency we need to react in ways that let the miscreants know that a crime against humanity is happening and not just an infraction against Viacom, Warner, or Dale Cripps. While I would typically shy away from all harsh measures, even able to write a coherent paper legislated morality, I do think we can make the moral code of our times clearer than it is. We need to support causes that, when mature, would eliminate the necessity for such breakable things as the broadcast flag and other copy protection measures. Forgive the soap box approach here but we are in the midst of a major revolution and since most of it is given velocity and substance by code we need to make sure that code and the rights to its private handling are respected as the owners empowered by business traditions request. Any less in our collective attitude and we will have all rights removed one-by-one as the undisciplined citizenry violate every method created to protect another's goods. WE must protect them, not ""they"" must protect them. WE cannot let civilization disappear into a hole as that boy did in the memorable scene of dry quicksand in ""Laurence Of Arabia."" There are some things which must be treated as social taboos. These software products are the gold of our times. A constructive social consciousness is one of the great tools a civilization can have for developing its graces and forward progress. Or is that really to be believed? Why shouldn't it be? It's nearly the way it is now. I mean, how many of you today steal copyrighted materiel? And if you have, or if you still do regularly, do you think that stopping will be as hard as when you quit smoking? It's an easy social contract to ratify because the signatories are already so massive in their numbers. We live chiefly by such ordinances in this nation but there are new murky areas as the result of high value and easy access so I think we need to restate our social pledge to preserve our economy and the pursuit of happiness which it offers by abiding in the fair use doctrine and denouncing wherever met unauthorized use. That will do at least as much good as a string of laws and appeals to Congress in a struggle for our rights.