We still haven't received our DTV Converter Box coupons yet, but at least one attorney is glad we haven't. Peter Tannwald of Fletcher, Heald & Hildredth, attorney for the Community Broadcasters Association, which represents "Class A" and Low Power TV broadcasters, is the lead counsel in a lawsuit filed this week against the FCC, which alleges that the converter boxes made available illegally prevent consumers from receiving Class A and Low Power stations, which aren't required to convert to Digital next February.
So, if the law says that devices need to receive all signals, and 7,122 out of the 8,881 TV signals that will be broadcast after February 17, 2009 will still be analog, you would think any of the the converter boxes that I can get with that coupon that I haven't received would still let me get that analog signal, just like the law says, right? Nope. Only SIX of them allow a so-called "pass-through," according to the Associated Press:
In the filing, Tannenwald notes that most television stations in the U.S. are actually not going all Digital next year.
...the majority of stations providing over-the-air television service to the U.S. public
are not "full-service" stations. As noted above, of the 8,881 broadcast television licenses issued and outstanding, only 1,759 are "full-service" stations subject to the mandatory DTV transition on February 17, 2009. The remaining 7,122 television stations are Class A or LPTV or TV Translator stations for which a digital conversion deadline has yet to be established. The vast majority of those thousands of lower-power, non-"full-service" stations will not be converting to DTV operation in February 17, 2009, or anytime soon after that, and will continue to broadcast their programs in analog format.
The CBA is basing its case on a 1962 law (the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1962, Public Law. Number 870529) that requires all devices that receive television signals to be able to receive all available channels. Even the FCC said in 2002 that all televisions on the market need to be able to receive both Analog and Digital. I know my TV (purchased last February) has both Analog and Digital tuners. It would make sense that the converter boxes still be allowed to recieve analog signals, since there will still be analog TV, and the law says that such a device needs to recieve all available channels, right?
It's also noteworthy that many LPTV stations serve predominantly Spanish-speaking and minority communities, and are owned by independent broadcasters.
Six of the converter boxes that have been approved for sale by the NTIA allow for an analog "pass-through" feature. According to the NTIA, they are the Philco TB150HH9, the Philco TB100HH9, the ECHOSTAR TR-40, the Magnavox TB-100MG9, the Digital Stream DX8700 and the Digital Stream DSP7700T.
I haven't seen any of them in stores, and neither has Mr. Tannenwald. I talked to him at his Washington home this evening by phone, and he explained to me the severity of the problem, how we got here, and what should be done about it.
Let's hope this gets resolved so viewers of those 7,122 stations can watch them next year.
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