IP: The HDTV Fiasco Gets Worse: TV Set and Cable Mandates On the Way

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>


[Note:  This item comes from reader Monty Solomon.  DLH]

At 12:37 -0700 8/4/02, Monty Solomon wrote:
> From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
> To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: The HDTV Fiasco Gets Worse: TV Set and Cable Mandates On the Way
> Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 12:37:30 -0700
> MIME-Version: 1.0
>
> The HDTV Fiasco Gets Worse:
> TV Set and Cable Mandates On the Way
>
> Issue #39
> August 5, 2002
>
> by Adam Thierer
>
> America's 15-year high-definition television (HDTV) industrial policy
> experiment has been a failure by almost any standard. Although this
> long and miserable history is too long to recall here, suffice it to
> say, the grand vision of the broadcast industry and public
> policymakers has become an expensive joke. And just when you think
> things can't get worse, Congress and the Federal Communications
> Commission (FCC) are now readying new rules to roll the burden of
> rolling out a service nobody wants onto the backs of television set
> manufacturers and cable network providers.
>
> Under a potential new FCC rule, TV set makers will be required to
> include digital tuners in all their new sets by 2006. The logic
> behind this requirement is that it will help jumpstart the slow HDTV
> rollout by ensuring all Americans can receive high-def signals when
> they are available. The Consumer Electronics Association, however,
> notes that this unfunded mandate will translate to a hidden $250 tax
> on new TV sets. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, House Commerce Committee
> Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) is apparently set to drop a new bill
> mandating that cable companies carry all local digital TV broadcast
> signals on their systems. Cable firms are already strapped with
> analog "must carry" rules that eat up capacity and offer them no
> compensation in return. Under the bill Tauzin is proposing, "dual
> must carry" rules would be forced upon the cable industry. So if that
> home shopping station on channel 50 in your hometown offers both an
> analog and digital feed, your local cable company will have to carry
> both of them whether they like it or not. That means less cable
> capacity for other programs or services that consumers actually
> demand.
>
> <http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/020805-tk.html>


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