The trends for cable from “DTV Transition weekend” continued into the work week with no major issues on the horizon.  A wrap-up call with our industry-wide “DTV War Room” group at mid-day today found cable engineers mopping-up a few remaining challenges with broadcast station signals in a handful of markets.  By and large, cable customers weren’t being affected.  There were some isolated concerns – and we would stress “isolated” – about possible broadcast interference to the cable plant in a few places that may have resulted from changes in transmission frequencies among broadcast stations.  Cable and broadcast engineers were continuing to work together to solve those problems.  We have learned also that some broadcast stations in major markets are struggling with challenges around signal strength and contours.  That seems to be having some impact on over-the-air viewers, but not cable subscribers.

Cable industry customer care professionals reported only marginally-higher levels of consumer phone calls to cable call centers.  They said that while call volume was up on Friday and Saturday, it had begun to tail-off on Sunday and was returning to close to normal levels by mid-day Monday.

We don’t think the transition is “over” yet, probably for millions of Americans.  Broadcast stations in many markets are working now to adjust technical parameters and “ease in” to their new frequencies and digital formats.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans are still waiting to receive government discount coupons for over-the-air converter boxes – in order to retrofit their analog TV sets for over-the-air reception – so they’ll still be installing hardware, hooking up boxes, and evaluating reception of their new digital pictures for some time to come.  Likewise, some over-the air households may still reach out to cable companies, or our satellite and telephone company competitors, in order to sign up for multichannel video service…which we still think is a good option for any consumer who wants to see broadcast television on an analog set.  As an industry, we’ll need to stay vigilant as the transition winds down, to ensure that our customers and other consumers get the most from their cable service.

If there’s any lesson to be learned from the DTV Transition of 2009…it’s that preparation pays off.  It was probably helpful when the President and Congress pushed the culminating transition date from February to June, and we appreciate what the FCC did to coordinate the activities of the many disparate stakeholders in the transition.  But even before that time, we believe the quarter-of-a-billion-dollar investment the cable industry made in consumer education for cable customers starting in 2007 – paired with the billion dollars of commercial airtime that the broadcasting industry kicked in for public service advertising – raised awareness of the transition to virtually universal levels and gave consumers some clues about how to get ready.  Our industry-wide contribution of call center support for the FCC from February through April 2009 not only helped fill the gap in meeting the need for consumer response efforts; it too became a consumer education tool and helped our own companies better understand the questions on the minds of consumers as the transition played out.  And the low-cost digital basic tiers that some of our companies rolled out also have proven to be a great way to introduce over-the-air viewers to multichannel video while serving the public good by helping local broadcast stations preserve their base of viewers.

Despite any hiccups, the effort to prepare American consumers for the age of digital broadcasting is likely to be remembered as a healthy public-private partnership that brought together both collaborators and competitors in a common cause.

Reports from the FCC as well as our contacts at cable corporate and field offices indicate that the broadcasters DTV transition has been completed with a minimum of viewer disruption.  The Commission held a news conference on Saturday to say that most TV viewers weren’t affected when more than 900 full-power broadcast stations cut off their analog transmission before midnight Friday, effectively completing the long-awaited transition.  (You can read the Commission’s news release at http://www.fcc.gov/DOC-291384A1.pdf.)

Cable’s DTV “war room” operation has been under way since Thursday, featuring daily conference calls with more than 100 cable executives around the country, constant electronic communications with those executives, daily conference calls with FCC officials, and regular communications with representatives of the broadcasting and consumer electronics industries.  All of these outreach efforts turned up remarkably few problems.

Broadcast stations in a handful of markets had lost their digital signal, or were forced to reduce the power of their new digital transmission.  As we reported on Friday, this created some challenges for cable engineers in those markets who had to work hard to obtain and keep those signals up and running on cable systems.  As of the time of this writing, a very small number of broadcast stations are still having transmission problems, meaning that some of them can’t be carried by cable systems until the problems are fixed.  In all of those cases, broadcasting and cable engineers are collaborating closely to ensure continued cable carriage of the signals.  And the vast majority of issues that arose over the weekend were resolved within a matter of hours.

As far as we can tell, cable customer care has been largely unaffected by the transition as well.  A few cable call centers reported small “spikes” in call volumes this weekend at times when broadcast transmissions may have failed.  But as broadcast signals have been restored in most of those areas, call volumes have returned to normal.

We’re continuing to work with the FCC and to keep a close eye on all developments.  We’d appreciate knowing of any issues you’ve come across…or hearing any comment you might have about the course of the broadcasters’ DTV transition.

There is a news story in B&C today on a letter we just sent to the Obama transition team: DTV Transition Call Center Would be Ready by Feb. 17, says NCTA.

As the story notes:

[President-elect Barack Obama's] transition team met with industry and government stakeholders in Washington last month to get a status report on the transition, and concluded more needed to be done to make sure viewers predicted millions of calls about the transition could be answered in a timely fashion.

So, we’ve responded with this letter, which I have now posted to NCTA’s website. It’s addressed to Tom Wheeler, who headed NCTA from 1976-84 and is currently the Transition Agency Group Leader for Obama’s Presidential Transition Team. The letter reports that efforts to provide a national, coordinated DTV transition call center would be ready by February 17, the current date for the transition to take place.

The plan calls for the use of up to 7,000 live operators during a period leading up to and for several weeks after Feb. 17, efforts that would require expenditures of approximately $20 million of out-of-pocket costs, most of it expended by the cable industry, and would include contracting third-party capacity, integrating and purchasing trunk line capacity, the hiring of English and Spanish speaking live agents, training, and the development of scripts.

These efforts will be ready to go if the current transition date of Feb. 17 stays in place; but have been engineered with the flexibility to change if the transition date is extended (as is being discussed by some).

We’ve written about the so-called “Digital Migration” on quite a few occasions (Check this post for links). Again, for the short version, there are two transition taking place right now – the digital TV transition for full-power, over-the-air television stations, and the cable industry’s efforts to transition analog channels onto digital cable tiers, in order to reclaim bandwidth and serve consumers with more and better services.

Since the word “digital” is in both of these transitions, even though digital TV and digital cable are two different technologies, some confusion has occurred. For example, earlier this week, Thomas Kraemer wrote on his blog:

I was surprised to see Comcast doing a mandatory switch to digital cable at the same time over-the-air TV is switching to digital. I thought they would phase it a year later as a way to keep cable customers. At first I thought they might be trying to exploit the confusion over the digital TV transition to free up some bandwidth by eliminating analog TV channels that they could replace with more profitable bits.

See also Brier Dudley at the Seattle Times writing on his blog.

In fact, cable’s transition has been happening for some time and will continue after February. Some consumers have mistakenly assumed that cable’s assurances that its customers need probably do nothing during the DTV Transition were incorrect.

Good news today for all those folks. NCTA has sent letters up to Congress today to announce some moves that should help clear up the confusion. First, here’s a relevant quote from our letter:

… we recognize that the overlap between cable’s digital migration and the broadcasters’ DTV transition scheduled to occur on February 17, 2009, inescapably adds a layer of complexity and the potential for consumer confusion.  We are determined to address those issues.

The cable industry has gone to extraordinary lengths to help make the broadcasters’ DTV transition as seamless as possible for consumers.  Our industry was the first industry to run a national education campaign on the DTV transition and has already aired over $225 million in public service announcements entirely devoted to educating consumers about the broadcasters’ transition and the availability of converter boxes and government-supplied coupons.  Alone among multichannel video programming distributors, cable operators will also ensure that all commercial must carry broadcast signals are formatted for both digital and analog customers in accordance with rules set by the FCC (rules that were, in fact, based on a voluntary plan first proposed by the cable industry).

Even with those efforts, the cable industry has been asked to consider taking additional steps to help smooth the DTV transition. In response to these requests, cable operators represented on the NCTA Board of Directors (who own and operate cable systems serving ninety percent of the nation’s cable subscribers) have committed to the following:

• Digital Migration “Quiet Period.” To minimize consumer confusion during the DTV transition, operators will delay the substitution of digital versions of existing analog channels from December 31, 2008, to March 1, 2009, except to the extent necessary to free up bandwidth to comply with the requirement to carry broadcast signals in both analog and digital formats or meet contractual carriage obligations.
• Analog Broadcast Basic Tier. Operators that offer dual carriage of broadcast signals would make access to the analog broadcast basic tier available under a promotional offer to new customers who subscribe just to that tier. This offer would be available beginning December 31, 2008, and would continue for at least 120 days after the proposed quiet period – through June 30, 2009. The service would be provided at the promotional price for at least one year after the customer subscribes.
• No Additional Charge for Equipment or Service. Recognizing that there is likely to be continuing consumer confusion even after the February 17, 2009 broadcaster DTV transition, operators would also provide the following additional assistance to all-analog cable households during and for at least 120 days after the proposed quiet period – through June 30, 2009 – to help them manage cable’s digital transition. If, during this period, an operator removes the analog version of a PEG or other channel from the broadcast basic or expanded basic tier and replaces it with a digital version of the channel on either of those tiers, the operator would make available to all-analog households, upon request, at least one free device that enables those households to view the channel. The device provided under this program would remain free for at least one year. There would also be no additional service charge for at least one year for the affected channel or, at the operator’s option, the broadcast basic or expanded basic tier where the digital version of the channel has been placed. Individual operators may choose to continue this program after June 30, 2009, or to initiate other similar programs after that date.
• Clear and Conspicuous Customer Notification of Any Channel Migration. Whenever operators cease transmitting analog PEG or cable programming services and begin offering those channels only in digital, they will provide clear and conspicuous notice to affected subscribers and franchising authorities not less than 30 days in advance. The notice would also inform subscribers that they have at least 60 days to avail themselves of the offers described above.

I hope this will help consumers during an admittedly confusing period.

As the Feb. 17 date gets closer, we not only see more coverage of the DTV Transition, we also get more confusion about what the transition is and what it is not. For our part, the cable industry has run an extensive consumer education campaign to alert cable and non-cable viewers about the changes coming next February.

So far, that includes TV advertising valued at $200 million. Not only has NCTA produced PSAs, but cable companies have also produced spots explaining the transition.  We have created a consumer website aimed at educating the public and participated with broadcasters, satellite companies and the telcos in multi-industry outreach to make sure consumers experience little disruption during the switch.

I want to make one key point here: A key component of our advertising campaign was directed at helping people learn how to get digital television without the use of cable. We were directly promoting a competing technology.

You can find our DTV spots at NCTA’s YouTube channel. Our advertisements were promoting the NTIA’s TV Converter Box Coupon Program, which allowed you to request a coupon that can be used to obtain a converter box so that you could receive digital TV on your analog set through an antenna. Our PSAs didn’t even promote our DTV website (Get Ready for Digital TV), but rather the NTIA’s www.DTV2009.gov.

At any rate, despite that education campaign, there are still many people confused about the DTV transition. So, let’s walk through the essentials.

The DTV Transition concerns the nation’s full power over-the-air broadcast TV stations preparing to switch to an all digital system in 2009. It is not cable’s transition.

As part of easing the move, some cable operators are promoting low-priced tiers called “lifeline service” for customers looking for an alternative for rabbit-ears reception of television. We also crafted a voluntary carriage commitment so that full power broadcast TV stations would be available on cable’s analog tiers for three years.

Given all of this, I was dismayed to see a new editorial from Consumer Reports magazine, entitled “Confused about cable?” The piece argues that cable operators are “using confusion about the forthcoming digital TV transition” to raise rates.  The “confusion” they’re referring to is the confusion between the DTV switch and cable’s own transition from analog delivery to digital.

While the broadcasters are converting to digital broadcast transmission due to government mandate, cable is transitioning to digital compression to serve our customers better.

I’ve written about this issue multiple times:

• Clearing up the DTV Transition
• The two digital transitions
• Separating the two transitions
• Once more – there are two transitions…

Bottom line: The broadcasters have their transition, we have ours. Cable’s efforts to move analog channels to the digital tier in order to free up bandwidth has been going on for years and will continue after Feb. 17 has come and gone. The two transitions have nothing in common, since digital cable and digital broadcast television are two separate technologies that only have the word “digital” in common.

Here’s an example. The CU article starts this way:

Should they sit down now to watch the Animal Planet channel, Heather Shorr and her daughters would no longer see snow leopards—just snow. Shorr, a Connecticut homemaker, says their cable provider has moved the channel onto a digital tier.

That’s a cute pun on “snow,” but it makes no sense. If Animal Planet was on channel 34 on the analog tier and it was moved to channel 112 on the digital, you wouldn’t see snow. You’d probably just see a different channel in its place. The use of the word “snow” probably makes the confusion worse by making it sound like a DTV Transition issue, when it is not.

Cable companies will eventually migrate all customers to digital, since multiple analog channels can be compressed into the space of one digital channel.  That additional capacity can be used to deliver more HD channels, faster Internet connection speeds or other services to come.

While the timing of the two transitions is unfortunate, and it has created a a little bit of a brouhaha, the fact is the DTV transition was supposed to be done quite some time ago, and our digital transition had begun before Congress set the hard date for the DTV switch (digital cable is a decade old).

Despite all that, we’ll keep plugging away, so that consumers can have a clear sense of the issues.  We will do all we can to ensure consumers (and reporters) have all the information they need to tell the two transitions apart, and to understand them both.