December 16, 2007
At a stroke after midnight on February 17, 2009 — little more than a year from now — televisions in some 600,000 Michigan households could go black. Potentially forever.
The 1.5 million viewers in those households, not necessarily understanding what’s happening, will be understandably upset. They’ll complain to their television stations, their friends and neighbors, their caregivers, their local and state officials and anyone else who might listen. They’ll scream for action, for justice and to get their televisions turned back on.
Or they’ll simply sit in silence and suffer the darkness.
Both scenarios haunt Karole White, president and CEO of the organization that represents Michigan-based television stations. It’s also what is driving her to make sure her Lansing-based Michigan Association of Broadcasters (MAB) does everything it can to prevent the upheaval that could result from the federally mandated conversion to the new digital signals in February 2009. The Association has positioned itself as the lead group in a wide-ranging effort to educate and help residents deal with the switchover.
“It’s a major technological shift taking place in a short time,” said White. She notes that when TV went to color, viewers could still turn on their sets and get a clear picture without having to do anything special. When FM came to radio, listeners had no problem with their AM signals. But this technology switch will require extra effort on the part of those who receive television signals over the air — or they will no longer be able to use their televisions.
Viewers who use satellite or cable or have purchased a new digital television have nothing to do except wait for the switch. But viewers who rely on receiving signals through the air and have no digital tuner will need to hook up a special converter box to their set. The federal government has said it will supply up to two $40 coupons per household toward the purchase of the $70 television converter boxes to anyone who wants them. As 2007 comes to a close, however, there are serious questions about whether viewers who rely on airwaves will know what to do, and there are serious doubts about whether millions of converter boxes will be available to the public when viewers need them.
Mandated change
Congress mandated the total switch from analog to digital signals for several major reasons. The spectrum currently used by analog television broadcasts will be reallocated, with some of the band going to police, fire, paramedics and other first responders so they can improve their communications. The rest will be auctioned — for several billion dollars — to wireless communication companies. In other words, the transition to digital television signals will make better use of limited air space, improve emergency communications and provide money to the U.S. Treasury.
In addition, the move to digital will allow broadcasters to multicast, allowing them to send out multiple signals over the same channel. The benefit of multicasting is that a television station can air four or more signals at the same time and give viewers the choice of what to watch.
White says the move is a good thing overall. “We’re backing it, our members have already converted and there are many good parts to it,” she said. “Broadcasters will be able to offer consumers more choice, so when a broadcast is in High Definition it gives fabulous pictures, and when not in HD it can split that channel into four different streams. This is the way HDTV is designed, so people whose sets have the capability will have more content and a higher-quality picture.”
She points out that broadcasters have spent millions of dollars converting to the new format. In some cases they needed to buy one set of equipment for the ramp-up period of the last couple years when a temporary signal was assigned, then buy even more equipment to handle the switchover.
While most of the media attention to the conversion has focused on the benefits to viewers and the new technology being sold by local retailers at dramatically falling prices, there are downsides to a total conversion. When White commissioned a study that found as many as 600,000 households in Michigan still relying on over-the-air signals and conventional tuners, she took those concerns to her board of directors. Act now, she warned, or face a potential public relations and revenue disaster. She credits her board with sizing up the situation quickly and choosing to deal with it head on.
As Larry Crittenden, manager of legislative communications for the Broadcasters, explains it, the stations realized they faced “a one-two punch.”
“On the community side, the Federal Communications Commission demands — and broadcasters do so willingly — that stations serve the community, and they go to great lengths to do so. They know local television has replaced town halls; it is the gathering point. The first thing people do when they don’t know what’s going on is turn on the TV, so there is a social responsibility. We can’t fulfill that responsibility if 1.5 million people can’t get a signal.”
And, he adds, broadcasters have even more at stake: losing potential viewers and the ad dollars that come with them. “Neilson counts eyeballs, and they don’t care how much money (broadcasters) make or lose. If broadcasters in Michigan lose 600,000 households, that’s going to impact ratings — and that impacts (millions in) ad dollars.”
Mobilization
While those involved say the benefits far outweigh any disruption, the sad fact is that those who can least afford to lose their TV signal in early 2009 are the most at risk of losing it, according to the MAB. The organization's goal is to prevent even one "over the air" viewer from losing touch with the world.Enter the MAB’s Digital Television Transition Project for Michigan’s At-Risk Populations, an education and assistance program utilizing a number of partners, including the Michigan Department of Community Health, Michigan AARP, Michigan State University Cooperative Extension, the Michigan Library Association and the Michigan attorney general’s office.
“We have a very extensive plan, which includes a number of partners whose constituencies are most at risk of losing their television,” said White. “In fact, this disproportionately affects the poor, the elderly, people with disabilities — many times their TV is their only connection to the world.”
The MAB and its partners have already mobilized in their effort, and the big public push will start on February 20, 2008, when they launch an all-out public relations campaign to alert Michigan residents. That day has been designated as DTV Awareness Day to mark the one-year countdown to the conversion.
“I think what’s important is that people need to be aware of the [2009] date and that they are going to have to take some steps to be ready,” said Ross Woodstock of Kolt Communications, an Okemos public relations firm hired by MAB to help get the word out. Woodstock, a former Lansing television station general manager, is putting together the DTV Awareness Day kick-off news conference.
“For some people it will be a converter box, for other people it’ll be cable or satellite, for people receiving over-the-air signals, they’ll have to buy a digital TV or converter box. People have options,” he said. “So, without freaking people out, we have to let people know what’s coming, and our job is helping them understand what those options are.”
Other state organizations across the country are mobilizing as well. National organizations, including the National Association of Broadcasters, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, the Consumer Electronics Retailers Association, the Association of Public Television Stations and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights are lending their support to people nationwide.
Spreading the Word
White and her member broadcasters control the state’s largest bully pulpit — the airwaves — and they plan to use it to broadcast public service announcements extensively during the year run-up. They have enlisted former Detroit Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, with whom many older Michiganians will identify, to do a series of the messages. They also realize that won’t be enough. So, any organization or person who has contact with those at-risk groups and individuals is a potential partner.“We are using our own airwaves to get messages out and our partner organizations are putting articles in newsletters and printed material. They will help disseminate information, in some cases directly to the consumer,” said White.
People also will be able to call their local Michigan Community Action Agency for information, she said, noting that her group is contacting organizations and individuals, such as Boy Scouts, social services providers and Meals On Wheels volunteers, who work with the elderly or others in the at-risk group, to help with the transition.
“Our messages also will be geared toward those who want to help, and we will be telling people that if they don’t need their coupons they should use them to buy boxes for friends, elderly relatives or someone in the neighborhood who may have a hard time getting them on their own,” said White.
The group also is concerned about criminals and con artists taking advantage of the confusion to prey on the sick and elderly.
“Early in our planning we concluded that such a widespread and complicated transition would create opportunities for fraud, especially among those who target the elderly with fraudulent schemes,” said White. “Representatives from the AG’s office agreed, and now they are ready to work with us to prevent the problem. Their first step will be to warn consumers about possible fraudulent activities, such as door-to-door vendors selling over-priced or faulty digital converters. The second step will be to investigate and prosecute fraud cases as they arise. Having the AG as a partner will help us increase awareness and cut down on the number of people who could fall victim to illegal activities.”
One obstacle to starting the campaign earlier, she said, has been the lack of converter boxes and coupons. It’s difficult to run PSAs or tell folks to get a converter if there aren’t any on the shelves. That would just confuse people even more.
“We’re very concerned with the timing involved, we’re disappointed we missed this Christmas season,” said White. “We will do our part, but we feel let down [by the federal government] because converters aren’t available and the distribution system is suspect. “I don’t want to give the impression we don’t want to go to cable or satellite, we just want to remain before the eyeballs of those 600,000 households.”
(As this article was being posted, the federal government finally announced that several major national retailers have agreed to sell the converter boxes beginning in mid-February 2008. It also said that beginning January 1, 2008, consumers can call 888.388.2009 or go to www.DTV2009.gov to ask for the two $40 coupons. Still, doubts persist about the availability of tens of millions of the boxes between now and the 2009 deadline.)
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Because of the potential for thousands of non-digital TVs to be thrown away, the transition team partnered with the Department of Environmental Quality. “We are working with the DEQ so people know how to reuse their old TV sets — the sets don’t have to go to junk and they could be a big pollution issue,” said White.The simplest solution is to reuse the old sets for video games or as a spare set for videos, said Lucy Doroshko, DEQ recycling specialist. But nothing is ever simple, she said, so preparation and education are always good standbys.
“We have been trying to be prepared for the electric waste issue since at least the turn of the century by providing information, technical assistance, websites and partners. We’ve been collecting information since about 1995, and we started putting the names of electronic recyclers in our publications and local resources map.”
Because televisions are considered electric lamps, they are termed universal waste for disposal purposes and residents can throw them into the garbage. That means they end up in landfills, but everyone would prefer they either be reused or disposed of with a responsible recycler so someone else can get new use of the materials, Doroshko said. Her best advice is to contact the local municipality to learn if there is a local program. Larger, more densely populated areas will have more resources than less populated areas, so rural residents may have some difficulty finding nearby recycling facilities.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle; think about what you will do when you buy it, how can you reuse it later,” she admonished.
Experienced Leader
Leader of MAB for the past 23 years, White has the talent and experience to push the charge to make the digital transformation as smooth as possible. She has been a leading voice in Lansing for more than three decades, having also served in executive positions with the Michigan Floral Association, Michigan Funeral Directors Association, United States Cheerleaders Association, Muscular Dystrophy Association and as a partner in an advertising and display company. She grew MAB from a single box of files and $50,000 in the bank to one of the largest and most influential state broadcaster associations in the U.S.More than 30 years ago, she was able to persuade legislators to allow cheerleaders to perform more difficult physical stunts. That victory is considered a watershed for cheerleading becoming a school sport.
A Lansing native and Michigan State University Spartan, White was inducted into the Michigan Society of Association Executives Hall of Fame in 2004 and earned the Citizen’s Medal of Honor from the National Guard. She was the second woman invited into the Capitol Club, an exclusive organization composed of the capital’s leading association executives. In addition to being a wife, mother and grandmother, she is also an avid antique collector and renovator of Victorian homes.
White represents not only commercial TV and radio broadcasters, but their public counterparts in Michigan Public Broadcasting and Michigan Public Radio Network as well — a marriage she engineered in the 1990s. “The broadcasting industry is an extremely interesting one, and this job has also fulfilled my personal need to do something to leave a mark with people,” she said. “Because of the wonderful community service that radio and TV offer to their communities, I'm very passionate about it. I really believe our new communities and town squares are virtual ones, held together by local radio and television.”
She’s especially proud of a program called Shape Up Michigan in which TV and radio worked together to encourage young people to exercise, be healthy and make healthy choices in their lives. “They held rallies and broadcasters aired them live, and kids could call a hotline to find out what they could do and what to do in their community,” White explained. “We used our own offices to field those calls.”
Unfunded Mandate
Some have called the mandatory broadcasting conversion an unfunded federal mandate, and it appears Congress dragged its feet in getting a solid coupon plan together. There also appears to be no discussion about a federally funded program beyond the coupon distribution to help at-risk populations.The Broadcasters have been in touch with many in Michigan’s congressional delegation, including U.S. Reps. John Dingell — chairman of House Energy and Commerce — John Conyers, Jr., Bart Stupak, Mike Rogers and Rep. Fred Upton. While all have promised to make sure there’s a smooth transition, it doesn’t appear that anyone in Washington is listening to them.
In a podcast over the summer, Dingell said: “The digital television transition is a matter that, despite what some may tell you, is not yet resolved. Congress must do all within its power to ensure that television sets do not go black when the signal is switched. The Committee on Energy and Commerce last month held the first oversight hearing on the digital television transition since the law that set a hard date to turn off analog television was enacted more than a year ago.”
In addition to mobilizing, the transition group is “working very hard to find some sort of funding and help,” said White. “Part of our population will simply not have the information or funds; some will not understand, some will be confused, some are homebound…They won’t be able to deal with this, going to get a government approved converter, getting it home and figuring out how to hook it up. A certain percentage may or may not have the technical ability to do that themselves or the mobility to get it done. We’re hoping we can find grants, and we really wish the feds would come up with some block grant programs and let the states decide who the poor are, because the states are the best judge.”
Meanwhile, the confusion is real among viewers in advance of DTV Awareness Day.
Most people don’t realize they can now watch high-definition TV without a converter box if they have an HDTV, said Lyle R. Schulze, vice president and general manager of Fox 47 WSYM TV/DT in Lansing and Jackson. He said his station is fielding calls despite airing announcements letting people know they can receive the digital signals over the air as long as they have HDTV. In fact, he said, the picture is better over the air than through a cable or satellite service, because it comes through unfiltered.
“There is a lot of confusion over the whole digital signal versus analog issue,” said Schultze. “I’m really concerned because it’s not at the forefront…and it might be too late by the time people really start reacting.”
Gary Gosselin is a writer for the Oakland Business Review and a former business editor of The Oakland Press in Pontiac and The News-Herald in Southgate.
Insert your email (required)
Subject
Comments
Insert email of your friends (required)