EchoStar May Dodge HDTV Bullet

[Gregg Lengling]

Multichannel News
1/16/2003 5:29:00 PM
   EchoStar Communications Corp. is expected to gain a regulatory victory Friday when the Federal Communications Commission rules that a Florida TV station isn't entitled to direct-broadcast satellite carriage in high-definition-TV format.

The FCC's Media Bureau is planning to rule that station WHDT-TV in the West Palm Beach market is ineligible for HDTV carriage by EchoStar because the agency hasn't addressed this specific carriage issue in its rules.

WHDT may appeal the ruling to the five FCC members. WHDT is the country's first and only 24-hour HDTV station.

If forced to carry WHDT in HDTV, EchoStar threatened to discontinue local TV service in West Palm Beach because one HDTV signal occupied as much bandwidth as eight analog-TV stations. The DBS operator said it preferred to serve an all-analog market rather than carry bandwidth-intensive WHDT.

Cable leaders have expressed interest in carrying local HDTV signals in part because they view offering HDTV as a competitive advantage over DBS.

Given HDTV's bandwidth demands, EchoStar CEO Charlie Ergen plans to roll out a set-top that integrates local HDTV signals captured with off-air antennas.