Digital Transition: In the Dark
On February 17, 2009, all television broadcasting in
Despite months of education and outreach efforts by government, industry, nonprofit community organizations such as the members of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and numerous other groups, many American households remain either completely unaware or only partially aware of the impending digital television transition. Those who are aware of the transition are often confused about whether they will be impacted, and what actions, if any, they should take.
Broadcast television is the primary news source for most Americans. Especially reliant on free over-the-air television are low-income Americans, seniors, persons with disabilities, non-English speakers, and minorities —many of the communities served by members of the Leadership Conference. These communities also own a disproportionate number of older analog television sets that require a converter box to receive digital broadcasts.
For many members of these communities, free over-the-air broadcast television is a lifeline. It keeps them informed and engaged in their communities and warns them about potential life-threatening situations. Many Americans owe their lives to emergency weather or public safety warnings broadcast to their television sets.
The transition from analog to digital TV should mean that the public gets more: better quality TV pictures, and more programming that serves our needs for information about our local communities. It should also mean that the public airwaves could be used to make access to the Internet more available at low cost to rural, low-income and minority households, and to small businesses. This new technology could better inform and empower all Americans, and give the opportunity to prosper in this new information age to all of us, regardless of our income level or where we live.
Our elected officials must do all they can to ensure that low-income and minority families are not shut out of new technology, and that we find ways to encourage diversity of voices and more information to help citizens fully participate in their government. We support the recommendations made by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund in its report, Transition in Trouble: Action Needed to Ensure a Successful Digital Television Transition.
Public Interest Obligations
The digital television transition is also an opportunity to address the question of how broadcasters should serve the public interest. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has allowed the nation's broadcasters to use the enormous capacity of the public airwaves - estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars - free of charge. In return, broadcasters are required to serve the public interest with programming that, among other things, encourages Americans to take a more active role in our democracy. For decades, broadcasters have been free to define for themselves the meaning of their public interest obligations. As a result, the current public interest obligations are open to interpretation by broadcasters, and the quality and quantity of substantive election and public affairs coverage suffers.
The DTV transition allows broadcasters to air as much as five times more content on the same amount of bandwidth that they currently use. Since they will receive this extra capacity at no additional cost, it is reasonable to require specific programming in the public interest in return.
Guidelines for public-affairs programming should be as clear as those for children’s programming. There should be a minimum of three hours per week of qualifying local civic or electoral-affairs programming on a licensee’s most-watched channel. A clear definition of what qualifies needs to be established so that the local weather and sports reports are not claimed as public-affairs programming. In addition to other requirements, a minimum number of locally produced public-service announcements (PSAs) should be aired by broadcasters and must be aired at times when viewers are likely to be watching.
Broadcasters can be held accountable to these new standards in a number of ways. First, licenses should once again be renewable every three years instead of every eight years so that if broadcasters are not living up to their license obligations, the public does not have to wait years to hold them accountable. The FCC should create a revised license-renewal process that increases the amount of public participation and places the burden of proof on the broadcasters to demonstrate that they have fulfilled their obligations to the public. Finally, the FCC should publish clear guidelines for the creation and powers of citizen advisory boards to assist broadcasters in understanding the needs of the community. This would help ensure that the community is served effectively, and help broadcasters fulfill their obligations.
