David Hatch
© National Journal Group, Inc.
All signs point to trouble ahead for the nation's historic shift to digital televisions signals, now less than a year away.
So bring on the spin-meisters!
In the most time-honored of Washington traditions, if the facts don't support your case, manipulate them until they do.
With some industry watchers predicting the hi-tech equivalent of a train wreck, there's enough spin these days to rival the famed Whirling Dervishes of Turkey. The doublespeak and backpedaling stretches from the Commerce Department and the FCC to the halls of Congress and executive boardrooms.
"I see nearly as much attention being paid to downplaying the potential effects of the transition as I do to fixing the problems," said Chris Murray, senior counsel for Consumers Union.
Greg Herman, vice president of technology for the Community Broadcasters Association, which represents low-power stations that feel shafted in the planning, put it more bluntly: "There isn't enough whitewash on the planet to change the reality of the situation. This is a big screw-up."
Even the most basic details are being skewed -- some would say for political gain.
When Meredith Baker, acting administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and a Republican appointee, held a news briefing in December, she cited the Consumer Electronics Association estimate that 13.5 million analog households rely on over-the-air reception.
NTIA, part of the Commerce Department, is distributing coupons toward the purchase of converter boxes that will keep older sets using antennas functioning after Feb. 17.
What Baker didn't mention is that estimates from Consumers Union, GAO, broadcasters and others run much higher. Public stations say there are roughly 20 million analog-only homes, while the National Association of Broadcasters projects that 70 million sets might require boxes.
As the main trade association representing high-definition set manufacturers -- which stand to profit more from selling digital TVs and related equipment than low-cost converters -- CEA has long downplayed the number of analog households.
Its assessment was recently supported by the Nielsen Co., which conducts media research.
Baker appeared to cite the lower figure, and not the range, to justify the ceiling of 33.5 million vouchers established by the then-Republican-controlled Congress, a limit some critics warn may not be enough.
NTIA spokesman Todd Sedmak insisted that Baker wasn't trying to manipulate the numbers. "It's just one of the facts that we talk about," he said.
Declared CEA spokesman Jason Oxman, "In CEA's view, our market research numbers are beyond question.
Meanwhile, congressional hearings are routinely preceded by bursts of inside-the-Beltway announcements, briefings and other activity aimed in part at demonstrating to lawmakers that regulators and executives are working hard on the changeover.
Last fall, the NAB postponed the announcement of a major outreach campaign by a few weeks so that its news conference would be closer to a rescheduled oversight hearing. NAB insisted the change was prompted by scheduling conflicts.
All this as surveys continue to show that large chunks of the population don't have a clear picture of the switchover. While NAB says awareness has grown considerably, it concedes 21 percent of the U.S. population remains in the dark. Consumers Union says 36 percent are clueless.
Rural broadcasters are suddenly being coddled by federal officials -- but only after embarrassing stories began to appear warning that most of the coupon-eligible converter boxes would block analog signals, which low-power stations will be broadcasting for years after the official transition.
"It's just something at the time I don't think anybody realized," an NTIA official said privately -- during a rare moment of candor for an agency normally on-message.
After news of the low-power stations' plight, the NAB formed a low-power TV committee, but for critics the move was long overdue and mere window-dressing.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, widely considered the lead government official overseeing the shift, recently passed the buck on who's to blame.
"We only got a petition from the low-power community at the end of the year," he told reporters this month, adding that NTIA was responsible for designing the boxes.
Herman countered that it is the FCC's role to anticipate the needs of stations it regulates, especially small players with little financial and political clout. "You should have heard from yourself," he said of the FCC.
Broadcasters and regulators also recently found themselves flat-footed over worries that digital signals may not reach as far as analog ones, leaving some viewers out-of-range unless they buy pricey rooftop antennas.
Television stations were quick to downplay concerns, but it won't be easy to dismiss. That's because it came from the research firm Centris, a member of the DTV Transition Coalition NAB helped create.
"There certainly is no backpedaling," insisted CEA's Oxman, adding that the trade group cares more about ensuring a smooth transition for all viewers than peddling high-definition TVs.
Jonathan Collegio, vice president of NAB's digital transition team, detailed the many proactive steps his group is taking, including hundreds of speaking engagements and a "road show" featuring two TV-shaped trucks, to shepherd the changeover. "I can't imagine that anybody could say that we've [only] been reactive," he emphasized.
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