The NAB looked a little sloppy Friday, first announcing that it would finally unveil its DTV public awareness campaign at a press conference today and then a few hours later postponing the event until Oct. 15.

It's unfortunate because NAB is already way behind NCTA in ballyhooing what it will do to make sure Congress doesn't look bad when broadcasters generate their last analog signal at the stroke of midnight on Feb. 17, 2009.

The NCTA announced its $200 million campaign on Sept. 6, and accepted the praise of lawmakers and regulators for its alacrity.

The timing was right for the NAB press conference today. It would have dovetailed nicely with the NTIA's DTV Expo tomorrow and the FCC's day-long Consumer Education Workshop on Wednesday.

NAB President David Rehr is scheduled to appear at the NTIA event. As things now stand, he'll have to hold back on details of NAB's plans or risk emptying the Oct. 15 press conference of absolutely all meaning.

A spokesperson for the NAB's DTV office may have been a little too honest, saying the press conference was put off because unidentified elements of “the community of broadcasters wanted a presence or speaking roles” at the event. My guess is that it was the networks that were the aggrieved parties.

It's a surprising misstep. NAB seemed to have had its act together two weeks ago when it staged a big press conference at its D.C. headquarters in advance of a lobbing blitz at the FCC on the red-hot white spaces issues.

Along with MSTV, NAB not only rallied representatives of ABC (Anne Sweeney) and NBC (John Wallace), but also of Fox (Jack Abernethy), which is not even an NAB member.

Up against the likes of Microsoft and Google, the broadcasters made a strong case for why portable unlicensed devices should not be allowed to share broadcast spectrum—the so-called white spaces. Such devices would interfere with DTV reception and derail the DTV transition, they claimed.

And as the broadcasters marched off to make their case at the FCC that Monday, network and affiliate together, they were a formidable force.

All NAB had to do for the DTV press conference was invite the same people to the same place, telling everybody to be sure to bring along their DTV talking points rather than their white spaces talking points.

You've also got to wonder why NAB has been dragging its feet on its big DTV campaign announcement, especially with lawmakers so anxious about it.

The NAB has a dedicated staff whose sole job is to plan and execute the awareness campaign. And, according to a TVNEWSDAY story by Kim McAvoy, it has ample budget to hire high-priced PR (Crosby-Volmer) and research firms (SmithGeiger and StrategyOne).

It should have been ready to unveil the campaign right after Labor Day as NCTA did.

By the way, I hope the NAB resists trying to top NCTA by coming up with a bigger number for the value of the donated airtime for its PSA campaign. NCTA's  $200 million is sheer nonsense.

Even the most simple-minded Hill staffer must be skeptical of the donated airtime claims after the TV industry's combined $300 million PSA campaign to inform the public about the V-chip last year had absolutely zero impact. I'd sure like to see an accounting of that project.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee last week scheduled back-to-back hearings on the DTV transition on Wednesday, Oct. 17. The House session is slated for the morning; the Senate session, for the afternoon.

I presume that NAB's new date for its announcement, Monday, Oct. 15, is intended to resonate with the Hill hearings. Let's hope it can stick to it this time.
If you would like to comment, please e-mail me at hajessell@tvnewsday.com.