Attention all owners of rabbit ears: In February, U.S. broadcasters will shut off their analog signals. That means your U.S. channels will disappear, unless you buy a new converter box. Meanwhile, Canadian broadcasters are scrambling to prepare for their own multimillion-dollar digital conversion in 2011, and the government's getting antsy. Kate Taylor reports on ...
KATE TAYLOR October 4, 2008
In the United States these days, cheery TV ads tell viewers that a change is coming to television as significant as the switch from black and white to colour. In February, U.S. broadcasters will shut off their analog signals, replacing them with digital ones, and anyone still relying on rabbit ears to receive American stations will find the TV screen has gone mysteriously blank - whatever side of the border they sit on.
U.S. public-service spots featuring everyone from the renovators on This Old House to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC, plus a host of local news anchors, warn citizens they will need set-top converter boxes to continue receiving over-the-air signals. Brady Bunch matriarch Florence Henderson pops up on an industry website urging people to talk to their parents about digital TV: The experts are particularly concerned that seniors with rooftop antennas or set-top antennas won't understand they need a new bit of technology.
Meanwhile in Canada, where broadcasting won't go digital for another 2½ years, it's radio silence. As yet there are no ads with Mike Holmes or Peter Mansbridge explaining it all to the layman. For those who know where to look, industry and government websites will explain the more arcane details of digital conversion, but the Canadian public is confused by the U.S. ads it sees and only dimly aware - if at all - that the Canadian broadcasting system will change over, but not till Aug. 31, 2011.
One television executive summarizes the benefits of conversion with these simple words: free HD TV. Because digital transmission is much more efficient than analog, conversion will allow broadcasters to offer high-definition television to over-the-air viewers as well as cable and satellite subscribers. However, because Ottawa has set the deadline for its switchover later than the U.S., the Canadian broadcasting industry is only gearing up now.
"No one is saying anything at all to consumers in Canada. There is silence," said industry consultant Kevin Shea.
"We have a fair bit of work ahead to educate the consumer," agrees Hamilton cable operator John Piercy. "It just can't go dark on them. That would be a catastrophe."
So far, Canadian broadcasters show a certain lack of urgency about conversion, and that has government alarmed.
"I do not want to get any nasty surprises in 2011," Konrad von Finckenstein, chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), told the industry in a tough speech he made in June, warning broadcasters the clock was ticking. "... My great concern is that the industry will not be ready. There will be requests for delays, and we will have a crisis on our hands. This must not be allowed to happen."
How many will feel effects?
Proportionately more Canadians subscribe to satellite or cable than Americans do and the immediate effects of the change will only be felt by the estimated 10 per cent of Canadians who rely on over-the-air signals: They will need converter boxes for any television set that is more than a few years old.
Still, that's potentially more than three million people, and many cable and satellite subscribers also have an over-the-air set in the house. Meanwhile, over-the-air viewing is not evenly spread across Canada, but tends to be concentrated in geographic pockets. Cable and satellite penetration is lower than national averages in Quebec (because there are fewer French-language offerings) and higher in British Columbia (because the mountains get in the way of over-the-air signals). One recent study estimated that almost a third of all television viewing in Windsor, Ont., is done over the air. Of course, those viewers' rabbit ears are picking up lots of American signals from nearby Detroit: They will need their converter boxes in February, not in 2011.
Canadian broadcasters will certainly put up the digital transmitters that transmit high-definition images in major markets - indeed, some HD is already available over-the-air in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton and Vancouver - but they say it will be prohibitively expensive to reach all Canadians with over-the-air digital signals. Their estimates of the costs vary widely, but they complain about undertaking capital expenditures to provide a service that a mere 10 per cent of Canadians require.
"Does every over-the-air transmitter need to be converted?" asks Glenn O'Farrell, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, which represents the private industry. "There are some places it's questionable.... It's all about additional costs without new revenues."
The broadcasters are now formulating plans they hope to negotiate with the CRTC, the regulator that set the 2011 deadline.
"We are working with the CRTC to find that balance between what is realistic and what we have to do to meet our obligation as an over-the-air broadcaster," said Christine McGinley, senior vice-president of operations for CanWest Broadcasting, adding it would cost that company between $65-million and $100-million to replace its 102 transmitters. CTV estimates its costs at $1-million a piece to replace 130 transmitters.
Of all broadcasters, the conversion will hit the CBC hardest: It has proportionately more over-the-air viewers, partly because it is one of the few signals you can get simply by turning on a TV set, and it currently operates 480 transmitters for English-language markets (plus another 182 for French), some reaching communities as small as 500 souls. It also estimates the costs at $1-million per transmitter or more, but has proposed a $40-million plan to the Ministry of Canadian Heritage that would buy only 34 digital transmitters for the whole country and reach only 80 per cent of the English market with an over-the-air signal.
"From our viewpoint, we are trying to meet a mandate as a public broadcaster to provide the best we can to as many citizens as we can," said Fred Mattocks, executive director of production and resources for English services at the CBC. "There's a great discussion [to be had] in there about what's the right spot, a discussion that in the case of hospitals and roads goes on every day."
The CBC's proposal sets the "right spot" - or the cutoff mark for over-the-air service - at a population of 100,000. Communities smaller than that would have to rely exclusively on cable and satellite for their signal.
(Whatever the costs of digital conversion, they are a drop in the bucket compared to the money the federal government stands to make: The change will free up space on the airwaves either for emergency services or for public auction. Industry Canada raised $4.25-billion with a recent auction of cellphone spectrum.)
So, if the conversion is expensive and most people already have cable or satellite, why not simply cut off all over-the-air signals? Mattocks feels that's a debate Canadians should be having.
"This may sound a little highfalutin but it all comes down to an informed citizenry, and one way you inform the citizenry is through unconditional access to media," he said, pointing out that all other Western democracies that have gone digital have chosen to maintain over-the-air signals.
While the broadcasters debate the thinking behind expensive investments for small numbers of viewers, the CRTC wonders whether the broadcasters are exaggerating the costs and dragging their feet.
In his speech, Von Finckenstein called their estimates of the costs of conversion pessimistic, and privately one government official joked about the broadcasters getting their transmitters from the people who sell hammers to the Pentagon.
"It seems a little steep and it's troubling," agreed Karen Wirsig, communications co-ordinator for the Canadian Media Guild, which represents CBC workers, including the technicians who operate the transmitters. "It makes the transition look completely out of reach in terms of maintaining free TV."
However, the Guild's own estimates from two different suppliers say many transmitters can be purchased and installed for $132,000 each and it suggests that, if costs really are as high as the broadcasters say, they should consider sharing transmitters in small communities to cut costs. Technically, this can be done because digital transmission is so efficient that a broadcaster actually has space for several signals on its frequency, especially if it drops down from high definition to standard definition (which is still higher quality than current television.) Local U.S. stations are expected to use that option to offer side- or sub-channels to their over-the-air viewers after February - adding a B and even C channel to a single frequency on the dial that might carry local weather and news while regular programming continues unimpeded. The U.S. public broadcaster PBS is already well established in this area known as multicasting. In New York State, for example, it offers open classroom educational programming during the day on a sub-channel.
This capacity will create new programming, which Canadians near the border watching American television over the air will start seeing next year. In Canada, where television services are currently allowed various kinds of protection from competition, the CRTC has said it will consider multicasting applications on a case-by-case basis, but that the priority is to use the digital capacity for HD.
The Guild's idea, however, is that, in small communities, the capacity could be used as a public service to at least maintain or even increase the current number of over-the-air signals, if only in standard definition.
Good news for cable guys?
If the broadcasters are wringing their hands over costs, cable operators are rubbing theirs together in glee, seeing an opportunity to sign up new subscribers who can't be bothered figuring out the switchover.
"It's probably a good-news story for the cable companies," said David Purdy, vice-president of television services at Rogers. "Most of the U.S. cable companies are predicting they will get new subscribers in 2009. "
As early as February, however, free over-the-air HD and multicasting will change the television landscape, leaving a number of questions about how cable and satellite, and their menu of specialty channels, will fare. As extra American channels become available to Canadians along the border over the airwaves, how will cable operators find space for them in their current lineups? How well will cable and satellite, which compress the digital signal, compete with the higher-quality HD that will be available over-the-air? Will the CRTC, which is also reviewing the rules that allow specialty channels protection from competition in their specific genres, eventually allow Canadian broadcasters to create their own side channels, full of movies, children's programming, news, sports and weather reports? And could the broadcasters use the capacity for other purposes, such as broadcasting to cellphones, thereby reinventing a business model currently under attack from Internet TV and personal video recorders?
"The story isn't completely written yet. What we know is that HD is incredibly attractive for viewers," said Mattocks of the CBC.
And digital conversion will deliver it - to most but not to all.
Digital TV: FAQ
I hear TV is going digital. Do I need a new set?
No, you do not need a new TV set. After Aug. 31, 2011, if you are not a cable or satellite subscriber, you will need a set-top converter box, which is expected to sell for around $50, to get over-the-air signals. Or, if you are shopping for a new TV, you will need one with an ATSC tuner, included in most but not all high-definition TV sets. Be wary of great deals on TVs: They may be analog sets.
But the United States is going digital in February. What if I watch American channels?
If you are watching American channels over-the-air, you will need that converter box by Feb. 17, 2009, and you may need to import it from the U.S.:
The boxes are not yet widely available here.
I have seen ads on American TV saying the government is offering $40 coupons to buy set-top boxes. Will Canadians get coupons?
Sorry. Industry Canada says it has no plans to help Canadians defray the cost of converter boxes.
And cable and satellite subscribers won't be affected at all?
Not immediately. To be precise, satellite subscribers and digital cable subscribers (those who use a set-top box) will not be affected but analog cable subscribers (who plug the cable from the wall outlet directly into the set) will eventually need to get a digital box. (After 2013 or before, if 85 per cent of the customers are digital, the cable operators will no longer be obliged to carry an analog signal.)
So, will my cable bill go up?
It might. Cable and satellite prices are not regulated in most markets and cable operators hope to sign up new subscribers, and move their analog customers over to digital. Currently, subscribers pay extra for digital boxes and packages of HD channels, but both packages and pricing will change as analog is phased out. There will be some pressure for the cable operators to keep their prices down both to encourage their last analog customers to make the switch and to compete with enhanced over-the-air offerings.
Cable, shmable. I live in the city, and get all the TV I need over the air. How will I be affected?
You'll need that set-top box, or a recent TV with an ATSC tuner.
I live in a small community, and watch TV over the air. How will I be affected?
That's the million-dollar question of Canada's digital conversion. Broadcasters are discussing with government how many
transmitters they will replace, meaning how many places they will continue to reach with over-the-air signals: Small
communities might find they no longer receive free television.
Ottawa has promised leeway on its 2011 deadline to cut off analog signals only for northern or remote communities.
So, what's in this for me again?
Free HD TV. As of Aug. 31, 2011, the highest quality high-definition television images will be available in most places over the air, and most broadcasters will air all HD. Cable and satellite subscribers will get HD too, but of slightly lower quality because those images are compressed. Also, the efficiency of digital transmission could be harnessed to offer you a wider variety of over-the-air programming if the CRTC permits broadcasters to air standard-definition side-channels alongside their main HD one. In theory, The National need never be pre-empted by Hockey Night in Canada again.
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