Hearing of House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet: The Role of Technology in Achieving a Hard Deadline for the Dtv Transition
HEARING OF HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET: THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN ACHIEVING A HARD DEADLINE FOR THE DTV TRANSITION
February 17, 2005
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Chairman Barton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to submit my opening statement for the record, but something that is not in the opening statement that I want to put on the record is that in the very near future, I intend to introduce a hard date, stand-alone bill on digital transition, and I hope we can get all of the members of the subcommittee and full committee to be cosponsors.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Joe Barton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Joe Barton, Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on the role of technology in achieving a hard deadline for the digital television transition. As I have made clear in previous hearings and elsewhere, I intend to introduce DTV hard-deadline legislation this year. We need to expedite the transition so that consumers and the economy can benefit from the full rollout of DTV, and so that we can repurpose the analog spectrum for public safety use and advanced wireless services.
Moreover, unless Congress takes action, current provisions in the Communications Act could cause approximately 15 million households to lose television service. The statute requires local broadcasters to stop broadcasting in analog once 85 percent of their markets have access to digital broadcast channels. The remaining 15 percent of households relying on analog over-the-air signals would then no longer be able to view broadcast programming.
We could address this problem by eliminating the 85-percent penetration requirement and setting a December 31, 2006, ``hard deadline'' for television broadcasters to cease analog broadcasts. Some of the revenue from auction of the returned spectrum could then be used to create a digital-to-analog converter box program. Such converter boxes can help ensure that analog over-the-air households do not lose television service. Similarly, cable and satellite operators could convert digital broadcasts to analog format for their subscribers with analog televisions. In this way, analog households would continue to get programming, and consumers could upgrade to digital televisions when they are ready.
Clearing the spectrum on an accelerated and nationwide basis with hard-date legislation will raise the money necessary to fund the converter-box program. Without such legislation, the spectrum would remain encumbered for many years and yield far less at auction. We would not have the converter-box program, and millions of analog over-the-air households would go dark under the current law once the 85-percent requirement is met.
On a side but related note, the FCC this week solicited comment on a petition by the consumer electronics industry to modify the digital tuner mandate rules. The consumer electronics industry would like to eliminate one of the July 1, 2005, requirements to include digital tuners in certain televisions in exchange for moving sooner a July 1, 2006, deadline. I will keep an eye on this petition, looking at it from the perspective of whether it will slow or speed the DTV transition.
I thank the witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee. Their testimony will help us decide how we might craft hard-deadline legislation and a converter box program, and estimate how much it will cost. I yield back.
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Chairman Barton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And let me say at the outset, you know, I am not undecided on this issue, so I think everybody knows that.
We have more people in this country that have television sets than we have--that have telephones, and we have a universal servers requirement for telephone service that we subsidize through a fairly extensive subsidy program internally within various telephone subscribers, yet we have no subsidy for TV, and there are a higher percentage of households that have TVs than have telephones. So we are trying to debate here an issue where we know that we want to go to the digital age, and I think everybody supports that, and yet, for various reasons, some are not quite as willing to go purely digital. We still want to maintain the ability to do analog and have analog sets in service. As I heard Mr. Upton talk about how--his TVs, I got to thinking how many TVs I have purchased in the proprietor of, and I have a principle residence in Arlington, Texas, a condo in Arlington, Virginia, a principle residence in Ennis, Texas. I have two congressional offices, two campaign offices. In my personal residences, I have 15 television sets that are plugged in. Now I have three in reserve. I have a Zenith cabinet set purchased at Knox Hardware Store in Crockett, Texas in the 1970's that still works. And it is my reserve set here in Arlington, just in case the other two TV sets blink out at me. If we had no means test and we required nothing except verification that you actually had the TV set in your home, I would make a gold mine from any kind of a subsidy program they put in place to get the digital. But we are probably going to have some sort of a subsidy. And you know, the real question is what do we do for those households that are not as affluent and they only have one or two TV sets and they are all analog and they get it over-the-air, and if we don't help them when we go digital in their region, they don't get television service. And I don't think anybody, regardless of political affiliation, wants to see that happen.
Having said that, if we don't do a hard day bill, if we just leave the current law alone and do nothing, as the FCC determines that various regions in--and I am not sure how they calculate what a region is, but I know it does--it has to do with the television market. I think it is DMA. You are going to be out of luck if you are in that region, say the New York City region, and it is the first to go meet the 85 percent test, and you don't have cable or digital TV, you or satellite, you are out of luck. So I don't see why we all don't agree that there should be a hard date. Now I think the hard date ought to be what is in the current law, which is December 31, 2006.
So I guess my first question would be to Mr. Yager. What happens if we do nothing? What happens to these sets that--in low-income families that have no capability when the region meets the 85-percent test right now? What do we do? Or what do they do?
Mr. Yager. Well, Congressman, we want to work with you as badly as you want a hard date. But your constituents are our viewers. And our concern is exactly what you have just described. What happens to the people who rely totally on over-the-air television? Are we going to disenfranchise them from total television? Or is there a plan that can be set in motion, which we are very willing to work with the Congress on, to get to a--some kind of way to convert these 20 million sets, whether it be through a box that converts digital to analog or whether it be some kind of subsidy program or some method. But to set a date, at this point in time, seems to me to be beyond the kind of scope that we can deal with until we get full----
Chairman Barton. Well, I mean, we have a date. The date we have--it is a soft date, because it is an either or, and I will tell you one more story and then my time is about up. My wife, thinking that I was under TV-ed, gave me a voucher for Christmas for $300 for a new TV set. And so we went to Best Buy, you know, in January. They were having a sale, and we walked in, and we went over and got a salesman. And the salesman said, ``What do you guys want?'' And I said, ``I want the best TV I can get for $300.'' And so they started showing us all of these analog sets. You know. A 28-inch set, I mean, really nice sets with the clicker and the whole bit. I said, ``Well, what about these digital sets over here?'' ``Oh, no. You said you wanted the best set you could get for $300. And those are all $700 and $800 sets and more.'' And I said, ``You know, I heard that Congress is probably going to, you know, do something about that.'' And he said, ``No, they will never get around to doing it. You want this set right over here.'' And so I bought a $300 analog set. And it is in my bedroom in my home in Ennis, Texas right now. It is this huge thing. I mean, you know--so I mean we have got to do something, because they are going to keep selling those sets, because they are basically--the analog sets, it is just the cost of materials and shipping. There is no technology innovation in them. And there is a big price differential. I mean, it is double.
My top-of-the-line TV set is a 42-inch plasma screen with every gadget you can get on it, so, you know, I am not purely a Zenith guy from the 1970's. I have one that is high-definition all of the way.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Chairman Barton. I think that--thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am not going to take long, but I am going to have to leave, and before I leave, I just want to say, since this--we have heard--learned of the announcement that Mr. Fritz is going to be leaving NAB, it think it would be very unfair if, as the chairman of this committee, I didn't tell him and the people he represents what a privilege it has been to be associated with him in the 20-some odd years that I have been in the Congress. He is a gentleman of integrity and character and has represented his industry with fairness and honor. Going back to the Cable Deregulation Bill, the Home Satellite Bill, the Telecommunications Act, and many, many others, he hadn't won them all, but he has always represented his industry's position in a way that kept the doors open on both sides of the aisle. And whatever Mr. Fritz does in his next career, he is going to be remember very fondly in this committee. And I want to say thank you for the way you have presented your industry's positions in the time that I have been in the Congress.
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