This provocative article from our Ed Milbourn will echo forward for a long time to come. While broadcasting is still a robust business the cracks in its business model are severe. Analog technology once dictated the business model for telecasting, but that is now remade beyond recognition with the advent of digital. What lays ahead for the use of broadcast spectrum? Let Ed Milbourn open your mind to an exciting and creative future. _ Dale Cripps

Don't panic! This may be a very good thing for HDTV. Sometimes it takes a seminal, very disruptive event to cause a fundamental change in traditional business and/or political models to ensure survival. Failure to make those changes usually results in complete disaster. Successful change, however, usually results in the surviving entity being stronger, more vibrant and successful than before. History is replete with examples or this phenomenon, so I won't belabor this tome with any further philosophical discussions. Suffice saying, however, traditional OTA (over-the-air) television broadcast may be upon that seminal event - the 2009 digital transition date.

In spite of all of the publicity, the subsidized digital converter and economic attraction of "free" HDTV, an increasingly smaller percentage of viewers are receiving TV via traditional OTA broadcasts. Other than providing a convenient and very economical means to couple local signals to Cable, IPTV, and DBS distribution services, the broadcast transmitters are becoming an increasingly economic "drag" on broadcasters. Of course, network and local broadcasters are aggressively exploring and embracing all of the alternate distribution systems for mainstream and re-purposed programming. The problem is that their most valuable asset - their licensed digital bandwidth - will, in 2009, be mostly gobbled up by HDTV, which most viewers will be watching via Cable!

The only way to salvage their spectrum and make it profitable after the Transition is to adopt a "mobile/handheld (M/H)" multiplexing technical standard that maximizes program choices to compatible devices, and most importantly, to develop the business relationships that allow this to occur. But one thing is clear; there is no room for "HDTV" in this spectrum equation, nor should there be. This does not at all mean that broadcasters and networks will not produce and distribute the highest quality HDTV programming possible. Indeed, that business is now established and growing. It just will not be distributed via their OTA spectrum and will not have to be compromised by it.

However, broadcasters must quickly act to establish this M/H technical standard and business model. At least two of several competing systems are actively deploying or conducting test programs in the US at this time. They are MediaFLO, a complete network solution developed by Qualcomm, and DVB-H, an M/H version of the European terrestrial DVB broadcast standard. There are several others in the hunt including those successfully deployed in Japan and Korea. In the US these competing systems have obtained licenses in the auctioned 700 MHz (UHF) band made available to them as part of the DTV digital transition.

All the rest of the US TV band spectrum (most in the UHF band but some in the VHF band) is licensed to the traditional TV broadcasters, and they are just now attempting to come up with a cogent plan to compete in the M/H arena. Indeed the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), the mother and father of our present DTV standards, this past year, has finally beginning to focus its efforts on developing an M/H standard for the broadcast spectrum. So far there have been approximately ten responses to their request for proposals, two of which were successfully demonstrated at the 2007 NAB. But much work needs to be done before the ATSC can present to the industry and the FCC a viable option. In the meantime their competition is rapidly forging ahead.

The political and technical battles to adopt an M/H broadcast standard promises to be the next big heated battle in the digital spectrum arena. It will engage all the classic issues of compatibility, compression, performance, "network neutrality," antitrust, cross-licensing, security, etc. etc. And to make matters all the more interesting, the focus of the action will be back in Washington DC, where the rate of standards development is inversely proportional to the square of the number of lawyers involved. A first level regressive analysis indicates there will be no resolution of these issues within the lifetimes of the participants.

But, clearly, no terrestrial broadcast M/H solution can afford HDTV if an economically viable "critical mass" is to be maintained. From a legal standpoint, justifying eliminating terrestrial HDTV from the broadcast spectrum mix may be comparatively easy. In fact none of the FCC Reports and Orders establishing the present digital TV structure specifies that broadcasters must use any part of their digital spectrum to provide HDTV. In only specifies that at least one of the "services" (multiplexes) be "free."

It's going to get very interesting. Stay tuned.

Ed

Posted by Ed Milbourn, November 1, 2007 5:46 AM