CEA Urges Broadcasters to Promote DTV on Analog Channels and in Program Listings

[Gregg Lengling]

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) told the FCC last week that said broadcasters and cable companies need to do more to support the DTV transition. In comments filed in response the FCC's Notice of Inquiry on the status of competition in the video programming delivery market, the association said it "conducts numerous programs to increase public knowledge about the DTV transition and broadcast reception in particular, and now is the time for broadcasters to increase their efforts as well by running public service announcements (PSAs) and similar promotions. Cable operators, for their part, must support digital cable ready (DCR) integrated television sets with adequate stocks of CableCARDS to provide a seamless viewing experience for new digital viewers."


CEA said the sales of DTV products is increasing rapidly, noting that based on its factory-to-U.S.-dealer shipment data, 9.5 millions TV households have at least one digital television set or monitor and approximately 1.3 million of these have over-the-air DTV broadcast reception capability. CEA noted that they expected the percentage of DTV sets with this capability to increase steadily because digital cable-ready (DCR) sets that include terrestrial DTV reception are entering the market in volume and FCC DTV tuner requirements have now taken effect for larger screen sizes.


"The uptake on digital products is strong, but competition in the market for delivery of video programming will be strengthened if the digital broadcast channels are promoted more aggressively, both during analog broadcasts and in TV program listings, and broadcast stations fully construct their facilities to reach all the viewers of their analog signal with a digital signal," CEA told the commission.


This information was obtained from the CEA press release.