FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and NAB President David Rehr need a sitdown with Dr. Phil. They clearly have some festering trust issues to resolve.

On Monday, the NAB staged a big press conference at its headquarters to ballyhoo a $700-million campaign to inform consumers that the end of analog broadcasting was fast approaching (just 488 days now) and that any sets they are using for over-the-air reception will not work after the deadline unless they take action.

Most of that $700 million is in the form of pledges from the networks and TV stations to provide broadcast time for PSAs telling consumer what’s coming and what to do.

In other words, the NAB is saying, “trust me.”

Following the press conference, Martin said he “applauds” the NAB effort and that it will “play a significant role” in the successful transition to digital.

But the next day, Martin told Congress, in essence, that the broadcasters cannot be trusted.

He said that he is proposing rules that would force broadcasters to do just what they had said they would do voluntarily—that is, air PSAs and report regularly on the campaign.

To some degree, you can’t blame Martin.

At the Monday press conference, Rehr and Barrington’s Jim Yager, who was there to represent the station community, danced around questions about when the PSAs would air. You couldn’t pin them down on how many would be seen in primetime.

Asked about it, Yager talked about the importance of reaching viewers in other dayparts. That’s true enough, but it sounded like he really wasn’t interested in giving up any of his primo spots.

The NAB is also underplaying that the PSA campaign is undergirded by what appears to be at least a couple of million dollars in extra out-of-pocket expenses in the two years leading up to the Feb. 17, 2009, analog cut-off.

That’s serious dough for the NAB, the kind it usually reserves for big lobbying battles like its on-going campaign to derail the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger.

The NAB has hired a five-person in-house staff to plot and direct the DTV campaign and contracted for some high-priced outside help—the Crosby-Volmer lobbying and PR shop and Starcom MediaVest Group, the big media buying and research firm.

The NAB, one presumes, is also paying to produce many of the PSAs that broadcasters either will or will not air at times when people are actually awake.

Broadcasters can’t fuss too much. Martin may not trust them fully, but the relationship is certainly not broken.

At his Tuesday Hill appearance before the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, Martin also advocated for multicast must carry, and, in any interview with the New York Times yesterday, he confirmed that he is pushing for action on a proposal to relax the media ownership rules by the end of the year.

Both are good things for broadcasters.

Martin said that he expects that the FCC will adopt the DTV education mandates in short order. I expect it will. The FCC's two Democrats have already indicated they are willing to regulate the broadcasters in this area. Heck, they’ve indicated they are willing to regulate the broadcasters in any area.

I’ve read a lot of this week’s Hill testimony on DTV education and have decided that John Lawson’s makes the most sense.

Since the government is the only party that is getting anything out of this—an estimated $12.5 billion from the auction of the recovered analog spectrum—the government should carry more of the education load, the president of the Association of Public Television Stations told Congress.

So far, the government has pledged just $5 million for awareness efforts. Not enough, Lawson said. The government should kick in at least another $20 million.

Let me take that a step further. If Martin and the lawmakers don’t trust broadcasters, the thing for them to do is buy time right where they want it, right where it will have the most impact, right in the middle of American Idol.

A total TV budget of $700 million sounds just about right to me.

Postscript: In the last week’s column, I said the FCC and Hill Democrats have to lighten up a bit on this DTV awareness business and get used to the idea that the dumbest among us are not going to become aware of the analog cut-off until after their TV sets actually stop working.

So, I was intrigued by a suggestion that Brian J. Levy, of Arlington, Va., filed in the FCC docket and that was passed along to me by John Hane, a lawyer friend at Pillsbury Winthrop.

Levy suggests that the FCC keep one analog channel on the air in each market after the cut-off. “It would play information about the transition to digital and have a looping educational film about buying and installing a converter.”

So, when our clueless fellow citizens are madly switching channels on the morning of Feb. 18, 2009, they will eventually stumble on the informational channel and learn what’s going on.

As Levy also suggests, the channel would also offer a telephone number and URL with the promise of further help. The telephone number would also give them someplace to vent.

I bet the FCC could find volunteer broadcasters in many markets willing and able to broadcast such a service for a couple of weeks after the cut-off.