For most full-power TV stations, the analog cut-off date of Feb. 18, 2009, is now no more than a big and sometimes costly chore. They are already broadcasting digital signals so it's mostly a matter of switching to the right channels and shuffling around antennas on the tower.

But for the far more numerous low-power TV stations and translators, the cut-off date is an impending disaster. That's because most haven't been given a chance to build digital facilities. They will have to continue broadcasting analog signals long after the cut-off date.

The problem with that is that the government and full-power broadcasters have launched an aggressive campaign to equip millions of viewers with government-subsidized converter boxes that, in essence, turns their old TV sets into digital receivers no longer able to pick up analog signals.

Compounding the problem is that few low-power stations are carried on cable systems and, because they don't have must-carry rights, they can't demand carriage.

They will be analog ignored by a digital world.

Faced with this dire prospect, the Community Broadcasters Association, which represents the 2,800 Class A and other low-power stations, is turning to the government for help. They want it to require A-to-D converter boxes that pass through analog signals and they want limited must carry rights.

Ron Bruno is president of the Community Broadcasters Association, the trade organization for low-power and Class A television stations.

Bruno is also president of the Bruno Goodworth Network Inc., which operates 11 Class A and Class A-qualified stations in the Pittsburgh region. He also owns the Videohouse, a Pittsburgh-based television production facility.

In this interview with TVNEWSDAY Contributing Editor Arthur Greenwald, Bruno raises the alarm and makes the case for government intervention of behalf on his fellow low-power broadcasters.

According to your recent testimony, the low-power stations will more or less disappear in February 2009 because most digital conversion boxes won't be able to pick them up their signal. Why is that?              

Most of those boxes only receive an ATSC digital signal and do not pass through an analog NTSC signal. That means that we lose viewers every time person gets that government coupon, buys a box and plugs it in. That TV no longer receives our analog signals.

Everyone knows that the 1,700 licensed full-power stations will turn off their analog signals in February of '09. But that's not true for the 1,600 low-power stations, 4,000 translator stations and the 910 Class A stations. We'll still be broadcasting analog for several more years.

So you guys have not been given digital channels the way that the full-power stations have?   

The full-power stations were given digital channels and over 10 years to operate them and deliver their digital signals to cable headends and work out the bugs.

The FCC only just recently granted second channel construction permits—not licenses—to low-power and Class A-qualified stations six months ago. To get the license, you have to build your second channel. Manufacturers are just starting to build transmitters for us because we just received these permits.

So we've got a three-year window for it and there's only 35 percent that have been granted so far, so we have a long way to go before our industry actually goes all digital. In fact, the FCC has not given us a cutoff date. We have to make a business decision as to the best time to flash cut to digital.

And flash cutting means pulling the plug on your analog signal and switching to digital?

Right, on the same channel. Now, according to Nielsen, only 12.7 percent of the audience relies on over-the-air signals. So when do we flash cut? When there's 5 percent left? 2 percent? Only 1percent not converted to digital?               

But as a practical matter, you want to make the switch as soon as possible, don't you? The full-power stations have a much larger audience, so, when they go digital in February 2009, won't that leave very few over-the-air viewers who will bother to look for Class A stations on analog?

Correct. We don't want to lose any viewers. But, as of now, only 35 percent of our industry has been granted two channels, and most of the digital converter boxes send only the digital channels to [analog] televisions.

We understand that the Samsung will pass both signals. The other manufacturers tell us they were unaware up to 80 percent of all U.S. television stations would continue to broadcast on analog after February, 2009.

Of course, by “all stations,” you're counting the low-power stations and translators along with the full-power stations which are going digital in February '09.

Right. But we're going to have analog broadcasting for quite a while. Our position is that any converter box | More …