So if every major affiliate in a market wanted to keep to the original schedule of going all digital on February 17, the FCC will penalize the entire market by denying the “early” switch request. But if you manage to convince one of your competition to spend the money to keep their the analog lamp burning until June, they might let you slide. Or not. It’s the government, they don’t have to explain themselves!
The Federal Communications Commission late Wednesday rejected, at least temporarily, a quarter of the requests from the 491 TV stations that had asked to switch to digital-only signals on Feb. 17.
President Barack Obama earlier Wednesday signed legislation pushing back the national switch to June 12 from the original Feb. 17 date. Stations were given the option of applying to stick with the February date.
The FCC had warned it might reject switches that weren’t in the public interest. In Wednesday night’s action the commission expressed concern about markets where all the major network affiliates were switching early. That would potentially leave viewers who were unprepared for the digital switchover without any source for local TV news or emergency messages.
The action blocked switches of major stations in Dayton, Ohio; Eugene, Ore.; Billings, Mont.; Lincoln, Neb.; Madison, Wis.; Providence, R.I.; Rockford, Ill.; LaCrosse, Wis.; Charleston, W.Va.; Santa Barbara, Calif.; Sioux City, Iowa; Topeka, Kan.; Wausau, Wis. and Wichita, Kan., among other locations.
The agency, however, suggested it could let many of the same stations go ahead with switch if at least one major local station would continue to broadcast an analog signal. Other factors considered would be as assessment of whether the analog station had news and public affairs programming and if stations would set up “walk in” centers to help local residents apply for coupons and set up converter boxes that would let analog TVs receive digital signals. The stations were asked to agree to the conditions by Friday if they wanted to go ahead.
“We have identified 123 stations of the 491 intending to terminate analog service on February 17th whose early termination poses a significant risk of substantial public harm,” the agency said in a statement.
The FCC determined which applications for an early switch would be rejected by identifying markets in which all stations would be terminating analog service on Feb. 17.
via FCC Rejects 25% of TV Stations’ Early DTV-Switch Applications – TVWeek
Maybe someone needs to attend the President’s next town hall meeting and ask him why he can’t just mail out converter boxes so we can all switch to DTV, happily together, and be done with it? Just mail them out with the tax rebate checks.
You gotta love the government: “We told you to be ready to switch by Feb 17, but now we’re telling you that you can’t switch, even though you’re ready to. This is all because we couldn’t figure out a way to do things on our end that wouldn’t upset people. However, if you can figure out a way to do things that won’t upset people (the job that we were supposed to do), we’ll be gracious and let you switch.”