Digital TV Facts: The Latest

Don’t let cable companies downconvert our HD broadcasts, affiliate groups are saying, in a letter to Senate Commerce chair Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). They mention football and NASCAR and everything. So they must really mean it, huh?

What do you suppose they really want?

Note that these are station groups that mostly negotiate retransmission-consent agreements rather than exercising must-carry privileges, according to Multichannel News.

Broadcasters do want HD-equipped digital cable customers to watch their shows in all their high-def splendor, no doubt—and cable companies will face customer revolts or defections if they deny them. But aren’t the station owners worried about retaining access to the large chunk of their audience that (as of today, anyway) subscribes only to analog cable?

Maybe they don’t need to worry. They know cable companies want their signals—that’s why the stations can negotiate retransmission. So analog carriage would also be a matter for negotiation…unless new telecom legislation takes it off the table.

[UPDATE: The affiliate groups say they’re OK with the part about converting their signals to analog, according to Broadcasting & Cable. The National Association of Broadcasters, by contrast, has opposed giving cable companies the freedom to centrally convert stations’ digital signals to analog before they are delivered to subscribers’ homes.]

[UPDATE NO. 2: NAB now says that they, too, are OK with downconversion to analog, according to Broadcasting & Cable.]

Related:
• Will some cable customers lose local channels?
• Local digital stations via cable: FCC muddies waters

• Links: Multichannel News, B&C, B&C