Religious TV feeling pinch of digital switch

[Gregg Lengling]

By JUDY TARJANYI
BLADE SENIOR WRITER


The most money WLMB-TV has ever raised during a telethon is $75,000, but during this year's fund-raiser, which runs through Oct. 26, supporters will be asked to more than double that so the local Christian station can make the federally mandated conversion to digital television.

Like every other station in the country, WLMB must begin sending a digital signal by Oct. 1, 2003, or face possible loss of its broadcast license. Approved by Congress in 1997, the nationwide conversion from analog to digital television will introduce better technology and free up radio frequency space for other uses, such as cellular phones, pagers, and computers. The switch is hitting small, independent stations like WLMB particularly hard.

Conversion costs can range from $3 million to $10 million per station for new towers and transmission lines, modifications to existing towers, antennae, digital transmitters, and encoders plus construction, licensing, and consulting fees. In addition, stations are expected to incur higher energy costs because they will be transmitting in both analog and digital during the transition. Full conversion is to take place Jan. 1, 2007.

A spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters recently told the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet that for many smaller stations, the cost of the change will exceed the value of the station itself.

The burden is especially heavy on religious stations, which look to their viewers as their primary source of support.

"Unlike PBS, we do not receive government funding and unlike most affiliate stations we are not part of a corporate chain. We're independent and local," said Kevin Bowers, general manager of WTLW-TV, a Christian station in Lima, Ohio.

WTLW is estimating $350,000 to $500,000 in initial expenditures alone for the digital conversion.

WLMB has had to delay work on a new $175,000 television studio building to amass the funds for digital conversion, said General Manager Jamey Schmitz. The station still needs $146,600 for the studio project.

Mr. Schmitz said the station has purchased a $350,000 digital transmitter and now must raise $156,000 to pay for a transmission line and second antenna and strengthen its existing tower.

"It's almost like building a second TV station," he said in a letter to supporters that went out last week.

"Equipment costs are the same whether you're a major or small broadcaster," said Rich Hawkins, general manager of Sandusky's WGGN-TV.

Mr. Hawkins said full digital conversion will cost the station up to $1 million. WGGN just raised $150,000 in its fall telethon, he said, but all of that money will not be going toward digital conversion.

"We're going forward with plans to meet the mandate and we believe God is going to provide funds to do it as we progress."

WLMB's Mr. Schmitz said he and other Christian television executives, including a group called Religious Voices in Broadcasting, have attempted to persuade Congress to grant religious stations a reprieve for the digital conversion. Over a 90-day period in three separate visits to Washington, Mr. Schmitz contacted 45 congressmen and 10 senators, among them Sen. Trent Lott (R., Miss.), minority leader.

"We got sympathy, but basically were told the train has left the station," Mr. Schmitz said. Had religious station managers become more involved in the process three years ago, he said, they might have had more success.

For now, stations are finding ways to handle the transition to digital, which will allow for either the broadcast of a single high-definition picture, known as HDTV, or up to six programs at a time.

Michael Glenn, executive vice president of the National Religious Broadcasters, said the conversion to digital poses a great challenge to Christian broadcasters because so many are nonprofit entities.

[Kevin Arnold]

Interesting problem. For most of these religious broadcasters using TV to send their message out is very cost-inneffective, running them a huge cost per viewer that may be better spent using internet technology to transmit to the flock. It actually is a poor fit. They might be better served by leasing or selling their digital channel and using one of the multicasting channels for their programs and let the HD channel earn them some money. I can see their point but they're playing in the commercial leagues which makes them match the costs.