Best cities named for digital TV

Posted 8:26AM on Thursday 10th January 2002 ( 23 years ago )

PORTLAND, OREGON - Portland, Houston and Indianapolis apparently are the best places to live if you're ready for full surround sound, high definition and wide screen television as the nation reaches the halfway point in its conversion to digital TV, officials say. The National Association of Broadcasters on Wednesday declared the three cities the leaders in the digital TV conversion, with stations broadcasting television signals with the kind of resolution and sound effects once available only in movie theaters. The digital signal allows much more information to be transmitted, vastly improving video and audio quality while also allowing data for home computers and electronic game equipment to ``piggyback'' to the TV. Later this year, the association plans to add Washington, D.C., to its short ``digital TV zone'' list of the most progressive metropolitan areas in the nation for moving into a new broadcast era that began when Congress approved the Telecommunications Act of 1996. By 2006, the old analog signal that has carried entertainment, news and sports across the nation for more than half a century will be as extinct as the dinosaurs, according to the regulatory plan laid out by the Federal Communications Commission. ``There's a huge gravitational pull toward digital in all electronics,'' said Edward ``Eddie'' Fritts, NAB president. ``Whether it's TV, cell phones or computers, digital is the future.'' Now midway into its conversion to digital TV, the nation has 229 television stations offering a digital signal in 80 markets, reaching 73 percent of TV households, Fritts said. By the end of this year, another 600 stations are expected to join the list. The FCC began assigning every TV station in the nation a separate digital channel shortly after approval of the 1996 act, so stations can broadcast both an older analog signal or a new digital signal. Many stations have not yet converted to the necessary equipment, and some face various technical problems posed by signal strength or location. Time is running out, however, under FCC rules that will require every station to broadcast a digital signal at least 50 percent of the time it broadcasts its analog signal, beginning April 1, 2003. By April 1, 2004, the requirement increases to 75 percent until the full conversion deadline of April 1, 2005. By 2006, stations are expected to begin switching off their old analog transmitters. Some will keep the same channel numbers while others will have new channels. But the digital signal will allow the entire TV broadcast industry to be contained in channels 2 to 51. The FCC is reclaiming the higher end of the broadcast spectrum for other commercial uses. Some of it will go to public safety agencies and most of the rest will be up for bid for various wireless services still on the drawing board. The agency does not comment on industry announcements, said spokesman David Fisk in Washington, D.C. But he said FCC Chairman Michael Powell has made digital conversion a priority and it is working with broadcasters to smooth the transition. ``Still, a lot depends on the industry and various issues that consumers will be dictating - marketing type of decisions,'' Fisk said. The big question for broadcasters is how soon consumers are willing to convert to TVs and other electronic equipment that handle digital signals - much of it still very expensive. But digital TVs have proved a popular item despite the recession, with holiday sales up 4 percent in 2001 compared to 2000, said Jeff Joseph of the Consumer Electronics Association. He said a total of 1.4 million digital TVs were sold last year, easily surpassing the 1 million-unit mark where products typically begin to take off. As a result, prices have fallen 50 percent in the past three years, Joseph said. ``And if you look at other products, the more competitive the market place, the faster the price declines,'' he said. By 2006, consumers will have to either purchase new TVs or buy a converter box that will translate the digital signal back to the old analog format. Fritts said the industry will be closely watching Portland, Houston, Indianapolis and Washington, D.C., to see how broadcasters and consumers adapt to the digital conversion in hopes of learning lessons that can speed the national switch. But he expects it will be much faster than the switch from black-and-white broadcasts to color. In, 1954, the first full year of color broadcasts, the major television networks broadcast just 68 hours of programming, compared to more than 1,000 hours of digital programming they offered last year. ``If broadcasters had not grabbed the brass ring and agreed to make the transition to digital TV, we'd have been considered passe,'' Fritts said.

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