NOTEBOOK

Television Digest with Consumer Electronics, Sept 6, 1999

AT&T signed its 2nd DTV cable carriage agreement and industry's 3rd, agreeing to retransmit Fox's 22 major market owned stations through 2009, one year longer than recent agreement with NBC (TVD June 14 p7). Both deals apply to systems upgraded to at least 750 MHz. While NBC sought full passthrough of 1080i, Fox long ago focused on progressive format, and will transmit at 480p or 720p, parties said. AT&T Broadband said it reserved right to adjust any 1080i signal "to support efficient bandwidth use." Like NBC deal and Time Warner Cable pact with CBS (TVD Dec 14 p1), stations involved are Fox-owned only and don't include affiliates. AT&T Broadband CEO Leo Hindery said company has dealt frequently with Fox and its parent News Corp. "on a number of fronts" that have included and continue to include numerous programming ventures. FCC Cable Bureau has said DTV must-carry rulemaking is targeted for 4th quarter, and more MSOs and networks are expected to announce carriage agreements in coming weeks to forestall regulation.

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Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearing Sept. 9 on nominations of Greg Rohde to be NTIA dir. and Thomas Leary to be FTC comr., 2:15 p.m., Rm. 253, Russell Bldg., with Sen. Ashcroft (R-Mo.) presiding. OPASTCO sent letter to Hill Aug. 31 endorsing Rohde, telecom staffer to committee member Dorgan (D-N.D.) who helped create "Farm Team" to make certain rural interests were reflected in telecom legislation. Leary is partner with law firm Hogan & Hartson with antitrust and trade regulation specialty.

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AT&T's appeal of Portland, Ore., open access case was taken off Oct. 6 calendar by 9th U.S. Appeals Court, San Francisco, and hasn't been rescheduled. Joe Van Eaton, attorney who represents Portland, said action didn't surprise him because court has considerable backlog: "I don't think it means a thing for either side." It wasn't clear what would be earliest date case could be heard.

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Senate Appropriations Committee's Labor-HHS Subcommittee scheduled markup for tomorrow (Sept. 8), 2:30 p.m., Rm. 192, Dirksen Bldg. Counterpart in House has markup tentatively scheduled for next day, details not available. Labor-HHS bill includes funds for CPB and related public broadcasting programs such as Ready to Learn. Meanwhile, public broadcasters were planning conflicting event starting at same time, same day -- demonstration of educational technology in Room SC-5 of Capitol. About 10 stations were expected to exhibit technology, with several members of Congress invited to speak.

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NAACP official said Assn. is compiling "information about different networks" before it decides which of Big 4 it will boycott during Nov. sweeps in protest of lack of minorities in programming and behind cameras (TVD Aug 2 p1). Several other unidentified groups, mostly Hispanic, reportedly are planning to participate in boycott and "we're working on this to get it done in the right way," we were told. On network side, officials of 2 said they had heard nothing since all 4 nets met separately last month with NAACP Pres. Kweisi Mfume at his request.

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Cable overbuilders formed loose coalition to strengthen efforts for tougher program access and multiple-dwelling unit (MDU) access rules at FCC. Competitive Cable Coalition (CCC) announced itself in reply comments for FCC's cable competition report to Congress, proceeding in which many of its members have filed individually, citing many of same obstacles. Charter members include Ameritech New Media (ANM), BellSouth, McLeodUSA, RCN Corp., and Seren Innovations, and we're told other, lesser known overbuilders may join. RCN Vp-Federal Affairs Scott Burnside acknowledged that "it is odd to some degree" to see CLECs such as RCN and McLeod joining forces with ILECs such as Ameritech and BellSouth, but said that strictly as cable providers, competitors are facing extremely similar problems. It wasn't clear what CCC's lifespan would be or whether it had chance to become full association. All members we talked with said they expected Coalition to be active on access issues both before FCC and on Hill, but differed on chances of lasting bond. Competitive cable operators say they don't feel welcome in NCTA. "I can assure you that [association formation] will not happen in the next 6 months," Burnside said, and "whether it happens at all, I would doubt it."

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FCC Comr. Ness is involved in informal information-gathering process on DTV reception issues, with results likely to be available in few weeks, source said. Process, being carried out with Mass Media Bureau, is to gather information on Sinclair claims that European COFDM modulation outperforms U.S. VSB modulation system. Information is to be provided to others at FCC as soon as it's available, we're told. "We want to make sure that we have the best system for the American public that we can possibly have," Ness said. "I certainly believe we did that when we adopted the standard, but it behooves us to make sure that the elements for which we optimized remain the relevant factors." Ness added, however, that there would be "a pretty high threshold" for considering changing standard.