Out to Launch

Broadcasters either have or haven’t launched their DTV education PSA campaign.I’m going with "have" but I’ll keep you posted.

Initially they had planned to launch it sometime in mid-2008, then it seemed to move back to early 2008, then to late 2007 and then, two weeks ago, it was the end of September.

The fact that the National Cable & Telecommunications Association launched their own $200 million campaign and started collecting warm fuzzies from Capitol Hill undoubtedly had something to do with the advancing launch date.

But almost immediately after announcing a Sept. 24 press conference to add trumpets and flourishes to their decision to move up the campaign, the National Association of Broadcasters issued a release on Friday saying the unveiling had been moved to October.

NAB said it was a scheduling issue, though scheduling it on the eve of public forums on the DTV transition at both the National Telecomunications & Information Association and FCC  seemed to make a lot of sense to me.

NAB has already delivered the first PSA (pubic service announcement) to stations, so my guess is the campaign has begun even without the brass band.