April 16, 2007
The CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), David Rehr, today accused cable TV operators of planning to dilute the high-definition picture quality of local stations.
In a speech today at the NAB’s annual convention in Las Vegas, Rehr said the practice, known as “downconversion,” will give cable’s own high-def signals an advantage over local stations unless Congress and/or the FCC acts. “What we have here is broadcast discrimination by the cable operators,” Rehr said, as reported by Multichannel News. Rehr added said that the cable services plan to downconvert local HD signals to standard-definition to give their own networks an edge.
Some cable operators are part of larger corporations that own channels that broadcast in high-def, such as Time Warner’s HBO and Comcast’s Versus/Golf Channel.
The NAB and the cable TV industry have been battling for months over several issues surrounding digital transmissions such as downconverting and multicasting must-carry.
Cable services, however, deny they are diluting the picture quality of local channels, and they oppose the NAB’s effort to force them to carry multiple digital signals. Some local stations are broadcasting digital channels in addition to their high-def feeds, such as 24/7 weather channels.
Multichannel News reports that Rehr today charged that the cable industry is discriminating against local broadcasters. He said cable TV’s opposition to carrying all digital feeds from a local station will deny the TV viewer from seeing important programming. “This is, in effect, stripping. They are ripping out programming,” Rehr claimed.
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