ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997 TAG: 9704080063
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LAS VEGAS
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Once they switch to digital TV, broadcasters will give their existing analog channels to the government for auction.
Critics call it the biggest corporate giveaway of the century: broadcasters getting television channels worth billions of dollars - not just for the upcoming digital TV, but also possibly to sell new products such as stock quotes or all-sports channels.
The broadcasting industry, which is meeting here this week, has thwarted efforts in Congress to force them to pay for the new airwave space. Even Bob Dole, when he ran the Senate, couldn't make that happen.
``This gift takes federal largess to a breathtaking new level,'' complained Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has tried repeatedly to force broadcasters to bid on the channels at a government auction.
Cable industry chief Decker Anstrom said the auction ``makes the sale of Manhattan for a few beads look like a hard bargain.''
The second channels have been estimated to be worth as much as $70 billion.
Broadcasters bristle at words like ``gift'' and ``giveaway.'' They say the channels are simply on loan. Once they switch to digital and its cinema-quality pictures, broadcasters will hand back their existing analog TV channels to the government, which will auction them for nonbroadcast uses like mobile phone service, two-way paging and wireless Internet access.
Because digital technology is more efficient than existing analog, broadcasters will use one-third less spectrum than they now use once the switch to digital is complete, said National Association of Broadcasters President Eddie Fritts. ``Most people outside [Washington's] Beltway would consider our return of the spectrum a giveback, not a giveaway.''
But the new digital technology gives stations the equivalent of five extra channels on the same-size slice of the airwaves they are allotted. Thus, they could choose to use the extra space to provide new services - possibly for a fee - like an all-sports channel or stock quotes fed to laptop computers.
The Federal Communications Commission, which decided Thursday to give each of the nation's 1,600 TV stations a second digital channel, doesn't have the authority to make stations pay for the channels. And efforts to require payments died without action in Congress last year.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB