SEZMI MAY BE ON TO SOMETHING, SEZ ME

At the NAB convention in 2004, Jeff Smulyan and Steve Lindsley were running around trying to sell broadcasters on two variations of the same idea: use the digital broadcast spectrum to offer a low-cost alternative to cable and satellite.

The so-called wireless cable service would be a mix of local TV stations and popular cable networks like CNN, Lifetime and ESPN. The lineup would be a lot smaller than those of cable or satellite, but so would the monthly fees.

Neither of the entrepreneurs could make a go of it.

Smulyan, the CEO of Emmis Communications, had hoped to rally other broadcasters willing to pool spectrum and other resources around the idea, but couldn’t convince a sufficient number.

By the spring of 2005, he had not only given up on wireless cable, but on TV broadcasting. He put all his TV stations of the block to concentrate on radio.

Steve Lindsley’s USDTV actually launched a service in four markets—Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Dallas—but it soon ran out of steam. With just around 15,000 subs, the company finally filed for bankruptcy in July 2006 and went off the air the following spring.

Given this history, I should immediately dismiss Sezmi, which this week announced plans to resurrect the wireless cable idea.

Backed with $17.5 million in venture capital, the Belmont, Calif.-based company is now trying to put together the pieces that it needs to begin trials in three markets later this year. It needs spectrum from broadcasting, distribution deals from cable networks and marketing help from ISPs.

That represents a lot of work—and then there is that history. It makes one doubt.

But the proposed Sezmi service possesses a few elements that its ill-fated predecessors did not and they could make all the difference.

First, the Sezmi box not only connects to a smart antenna to receive the local TV stations and cable networks off air, but also to the Internet so that subscribers can tap into the VOD movies and TV shows that the studios and networks are making available as well as the blizzard of videos on YouTube and elsewhere.

Second, the Sezmi box will contain a super DVR with one terabyte of storage. That means that it can record much of what it receives off the air or finds on the Web and have it ready when you are.

Finally, Sezmi is promising a smart interface that will help subscribers sort through it all and organize it so they will always have their favorites right at their fingertips.

When Smulyan and Lindsley were pushing their business plans in 2003 and 2004, YouTube didn’t yet exist and the idea that the best of the broadcast networks would be readily available on the Web was absurd. And DVR capability and smart interfaces were second-generation concepts.

Sezmi still has to sell the broadcasters on the idea and that will not be easy. Several, including Fox, Hearst-Argyle, LIN TV, McGraw-Hill and Morgan Murphy Media saw their investments in USDTV disappear.

What’s more, broadcasters are not as clueless today about what to do with their digital spectrum as they were in 2004.

A growing number of stations are using their extra spectrum for secondary ad-supported networks—CW, MNT, RTN, LATV, .2Network, World Championship Sports Network and home-grown news and weather channels.

And many are hot about in-band mobile TV. They want to reserve spectrum for broadcasting live programming to cars, PDAs, cellphones and laptops.

So, broadcast spectrum is tight and getting tighter. Sezmi will have to move fast. The more spectrum it lines up in each market and the more cable networks it can offer, the better it chances will be.

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You have to be impressed with Bob Pittman’s enthusiasm for small-market broadcasting, which laced his TVNEWSDAY Executive Session interview with me this week.

He makes a strong and cogent case for why TV stations in DMA 50 and below can grow despite audience fragmentation by homing in on local advertisers and intercepting marketing dollars now going to newspapers and yellow pages.

As a principal in the Pilot Group, Pittman is putting his theories to the test by backing Barrington Broadcasting, a station group whose largest station is in the rust-belt market of Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Mich. (DMA 65).

It all makes sense the way Pittman explains it.

But then there is reality.

The day after I interviewed him, The Toledo Blade reported that Barringtons’ WNWO in Toledo was laying off an unspecified number of reporters, photographers and editors.

GM Jon Skorburg blamed it on all the competition nipping at TV stations. “"We’re facing a brave new world here, and models we've used for 40 or 50 years are no longer applicable."

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As Kim McAvoy reported here on Wednesday, the FCC is having trouble finding a market where all the TV stations are willing and able to cut off their analog signals and go all-digital in advance of the official transition date next February—late this summer or early fall.

The FCC wants to make sure that everything works as it is suppose to so that it is not surprised on Feb. 18, 2009.

It’s a good idea, one of the few the FCC has had lately. I hope that it can find a suitable market for the trial.

But let me repeat a better one from my column last October.

Brian J. Levy, of Arlington, Va., whom I have not been able to track down, but who appears to be just a citizen with an interest in DTV, suggested in an e-mail to the FCC that it should keep one analog station on the air in each market after the cut-off date to broadcast a crawl explaining what’s going on.

“It would play information about the transition to digital and have a looping educational film about buying and installing a converter,” Levy said.

The channel would also offer a telephone number and a URL with the promise of further help. Another telephone number might give confused viewers someplace to vent.

It’s a terrific idea. I bet the FCC could find volunteer broadcasters in many markets willing and able to broadcast such a service for several weeks after the cut-off. It need only ask.

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Congratulations to John Orlando.

The CBS lobbyist was recognized as one of top in-house lobbyists by The Hill, one of the newspapers that covers goings-on in Congress.

“In-house lobbyists don’t have the same swashbuckling reputation as the hired guns on K Street, who charge by the hour and, drink in hand, hobnob at fundraisers most nights of the week,” The Hill explained. “But in the light of day, members of Congress and their aides often value the steady counsel of corporate lobbyists more.”

Of the 32 on the list, Orlando is the only one representing a media company (if you don’t count AT&T and Verizon as media companies).

A one-time aide to Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), Orlando joined CBS after departing NAB in December 2005 following the Fritts-Rehr regime change.