ABC-Owned Stations to Deliver Analog Feeds After DTV Transition
Network to Offer Cable Systems Wireline Feed of Analog Signals for at Least One Year
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/14/2008 12:05:00 PM
ABC stations will continue to air an analog signal after the transition to digital after all, but only for use by analog cable customers.
ABC said Monday that subject to agreements with the local cable operators involved, it would make a standard-definition, 4/3 aspect ratio analog feed of its 10 owned TV stations available to cable operators for at least one year after the transition to digital TV in February 2009.
Broadcasters by law must cut off analog broadcasts by Feb. 17, 2009, but the ABC feed will be wireline and available to cable operators only to feed to their cable-system headends and, via that route, to their analog customers.
Cable operators are required by the Federal Communications Commission to make a viewable signal available to their customers after the transition, which, in some cases, will mean downconverting a digital signal to analog for subscribers who have not made the switch to digital cable. One question that has remained open is just who is responsible for providing the viewable feed.
"The hope is that this will provide viewers in those 10 stations' markets who have not converted to digital cable the capacity to have a better picture," ABC spokeswoman Julie Hoover said.
“These extra feeds will help to ensure that the highest-quality signal is provided to our local ABC viewers who continue to have analog-television sets in their homes by the Feb. 17 cutoff date,” ABC-owned stations group president Walter Liss said in announcing the move.
The cable industry was pleased with the help.
“We’re delighted that the ABC-owned TV stations are offering this valuable service benefiting cable subscribers who will continue to depend upon a standard-definition signal after Feb. 17," said Richard Green, president of cable's technological test bed, Cable Television Laboratories. "These feeds exemplify the shared objective of broadcasters and cable operators to provide the best possible picture and sound for all viewers during the federally mandated digital transition.”
The stations, which cover about 24% of the country, are WABC-TV New York; KABC-TV Los Angeles; WLS-TV Chicago; WPVI-TV Philadelphia; KGO-TV San Francisco; KTRK-TV Houston; WTVD-TV Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; KFSN-TV Fresno, Calif.; WJRT-TV Flint, Mich.; and WTVG-TV Toledo, Ohio.
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ABC is making it available not giving it. Cable companies can easily convert digital signals to QAM which most operators of cable systems use.
Other sources of TV like low power stations won't have to convert to digital so in theory those could use the ABC feed if given permission.
I agree the FCC should've have made converters free or at best NOT told companies how much they'd get off, obviously if you tell a company they get $40 off then the manufacturer will not sell it for that even if it could. This killed competition, we might have seen $25 converters or less.
Eric Johnson - 4/15/2008 2:59:00 PM EDT -
ABC''s decision creates a two-tier "separate but unequal" TV transmission scheme. It is sure to prompt calls by Congress to also make the analog feed available to the general public -- especially since it appears that some significant proportion of the viewing audience, such as the elderly, will not be ready for DTV on day one.
I can hear the howls already: The cable industry gets analog to serve its bottom-line but customers with older sets do not. Big cable can get an analog feed, but the little guy with the rabbit ears doesn''t. Congress won''t let this stand, even if the FCC goes along.
But there''s another aspect to ABC''s decision that''s sure to trouble some folks in its own programming department: A 4:3 analog signal tacitly gives the cable industry permission to alter the aspect ratio of the original HD-formatted broadcast programming to fit analog TV screens. The director''s original intent will not be reflected in the analog cable feed. Why wouldn''t ABC want to preserve the aspect ratio so as not to shortchange analog viewers who wish to see programming as the director intended? The decision invites backlash from the creative community, just as the colorization issue mobilized the film directors.
If there is to be an analog feed from broadcasters, it should be BROADCAST. A two-tiered transmission scheme is discriminatory and arguably illegal.
One final point: The cable industry doesn''t need a network analog feed to give customers analog: a simple D-to-A converter is all that is needed for subscribers who resist upgrading to an HDTV set.
ABC didn''t game this one out. Where''s the NAB on this?
Victor Livingston - 4/14/2008 5:35:00 PM EDT
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