Audio Video News

Better late than never, the old adage goes. The Consumer Electronics Association and the National Association of Broadcasters, former adversaries in the digital television rollout debacle, have decided to bury the hatchet and begin promoting DTV cooperatively.

Leaders of the two organizations made the announcement at the annual NAB convention held April 23–26 in Las Vegas. Their relationship had previously consisted of joint accusations of violating their respective ends of the DTV bargain: the manufacturers attributed the format's shortfall to a lack of high-definition programming, while the broadcasters claimed that consumers were balking because digital receivers were too expensive. Both parties have blamed the cable industry, the third necessary participant in the stalled rollout, for refusing to carry digital signals.

This fall, the CEA and NAB will launch a collaborative campaign to educate the viewing public about the benefits of digital television. Both organizations are making significant financial commitments to the project, which will include TV and print ads pushing hardware and programming. The campaign will expand in 2002, according to statements made in Las Vegas.

The two organizations will participate in a "summit conference" June 20 in Lake Tahoe, where plans for the promotional campaign will be developed further. This public demonstration of a new cooperative attitude is the result of months of behind-the-scenes negotiation, said some industry veterans. Both groups had begun to realize that rants and accusations were achieving little progress. Of the new collaborative approach, CEA chief Gary Shapiro said, "We wouldn't do it if we didn't think it would have an impact. There's an opportunity here for broadcasters and manufacturers to work together to promote a new product."

Some convention-goers were encouraged by refinements of the "8-VSB" digital broadcasting standard, which they believe will improve over-the-air reception reliability, in the wake of a number of unsatisfactory field tests of the original standard. In Las Vegas, Zenith Electronics unveiled a prototype of a new DTV modulation technique that the company is calling "E-VSB," which it claimed is both compatible with and "more robust" than the transmission standard approved by the Federal Communications Commission. E-VSB will "significantly improve indoor reception and reception for portable sets," according to Zenith's John Taylor.

Improving over-the-air reception will only marginally increase the market acceptance of digital television, however, because the vast majority of viewers receive their TV signals via cable. To date, the cable industry has refused to carry bandwidth-intensive DTV signals because few subscribers have the equipment to receive them.

Forcing cable providers to cooperate in the DTV rollout will be a priority for the new CEA/NAB alliance. Toward that end, broadcasters are seeking a reversal of an FCC ruling in January that upheld the cable industry's right not to supply digital signals to its customers, a decision that NAB president Edward Fritts deemed "a tremendous obstacle in the consumer's path to digital broadcasting." The NAB, the Maximum Service Television Association, and the Association of Local Television Stations have jointly filed a petition with the FCC to rework regulations so that cable subscribers will be able to receive DTV programming. "Dual must-carry," as the desired rule is called, would force cable companies to provide both analog and digital signals during the transition to all-digital broadcasting.