Digital TV poses challenges for cable industry

May 3, 1998
Web posted at: 8:02 p.m. EDT (0002 GMT)

ATLANTA (AP) -- When television broadcasters begin dressing up their programming in the new high-definition format, perhaps as early as this fall, cable systems will have to cooperate or it's going to be "can't see TV."

Cable TV executives say local cable systems will be ready to pipe the sharper pictures and CD-like sound into viewers' homes.

Still, just how to handle the next generation of television is much on the minds of cable executives gathering Sunday in Atlanta for their annual convention. The dilemma is twofold: Whether broadcasters will have guarantees that cable will carry their signals; and how the signal will be delivered into customers' digital TV sets.

TCI, Time Warner, Cox, Comcast and other cable companies that own local systems say they will use set-top boxes that broadcasters are pushing to give cable customers with digital sets access to broadcasters' high-definition and other digital channels.

A greater problem, however, is the carriage guarantee.

Broadcasters are agitating for the government to force local cable systems to carry the advanced digital channels as they now carry the analog ones. The Federal Communications Commission is expected to take up the matter in June.

The cable industry opposes government requirements, preferring voluntary carriage agreements.

During the transition to digital, local TV stations will be allowed to have two channels, one for digital, the other for the current analog TV system.

Most cable systems lack the channel space to carry both digital and analog signals, but upgrades already are under way to provide systems the space to carry both.

If the FCC ordered a blanket commitment for cable to carry digital broadcast signals, cable systems without open channels on their systems would have to drop cable TV networks to make room, cable executives say.

'Roadblock in reaching viewers'?

That is unacceptable, said Decker Anstrom, National Cable Television Association president. "As a matter of policy," he said, "we will never accept that every broadcast signal takes priority over any cable network."

"A time will come when this ... whole discussion is entirely academic, because our technology and our shelf-space capabilities will be rising at roughly the same rate, in my opinion, as high-definition television begins to arrive throughout our society," said Leo Hindery, president of cable giant Tele-Communications Inc.

But were the government to require mandatory carriage of the new signals before that happens, Hindery said, that "would be one of the greatest displacements of high-quality (cable) programming -- one of the rudest things I can ever, ever imagine for consumers in this country."

"We've got to reach our customers one way or the other. We're terribly concerned there will be a roadblock in reaching viewers," said Molly Pauker, vice president of Fox TV Stations Inc.

While cable and broadcasters duke it out over mandating carriage of digital channels, cable companies are working to get new set-top boxes for customers who buy digital sets.

New digital TVs that debut this fall will receive high-definition signals, offering the best picture quality and sound, as well as standard-definition signals. Those are less defined than high definition but offer improved picture and sound quality over existing analog television.

"We'll provide HDTV-capable boxes to those customers who have HDTV sets as soon as they want them," said Jim Chiddix, Time Warner Cable's chief technical officer.

Specially built digital set-top boxes are expected to be available in November to coincide with the debut of new digital sets. The boxes are made to work with the digital sets and will pass through both broadcasters' digital signals, including high definition, and cable's digital offerings, said Dick Green, president of the cable industry-supported research group Cable Lab's.

Roughly 1 million digital cable boxes that will be deployed by the end of this year, however, block broadcasters' high-definition signals because they were not built to work with the new digital sets, Green said.

Generally speaking, a customer with such a box who buys a new digital set will either have to get one of the special set-top boxes from the cable company or use an antenna to receive broadcasters' digital channels.

Copyright 1998   The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

Related stories:

• High definition television -- Is it stuck in left field? - September 17, 1997
• HDTV: New TV, but not just digital - April 3, 1997
• Pricey digital TV is next techno frontier - April 3, 1997

Related sites:

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• Current Briefing: Public TV goes digital and high-definition
• Welcome to National Cable Television Association
• Tele-Communications, Inc. - TCI
• Time Warner Cable
• Cox Communications
• Comcast Corp.
• Federal Communications Commission
• HDTV Newsletter
• High Definition FAQs - from Sony Online

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

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