TV stations bear burden of digital switch

Charlotte Sun
May 9, 2008

NEIL HUGHES
Staff Writer

Preparing for the 2009 digital television switch will cost some residents less than $20 on average.

But for locally-broadcast television stations, the Federal Communications Commission’s mandated abandonment of the analog airwaves — the technology used to broadcast TV stations for a half-century — will cost millions.

Some, such as Fort Myersbased CBS affiliate WINK, have not only finished their conversion to digital, but have gone above and beyond. WINK is the first station in Southwest Florida to provide local news in high definition.

But many stations, like ABC-7 in Sarasota, still have work to do before they can be in compliance with the FCC mandate.

The requirements are clear: Switch over-the-air signals to digital by Feb. 18, 2009, or lose your right to broadcast.

“We are regulated by the government, the FCC, and when they say that you have to do something, that’s how we keep our business running,” said Gregory Stetson, program director for WINK. “That’s the price of doing business.”

For WINK, it will be a relatively simple step. When it switched to high definition local news in 2007, it was the 32nd station to do so in the United States.

It was a monumental undertaking, but one that has put the station in a position where killing the analog broadcast signal will be as simple as flipping a switch. Keith Stuhlmann, director of engineering for WINK, imagined how that fateful day will proceed.

“We go out to the transfer site, probably have a little ceremony, and hit the switch on the transmitter signal,” Stuhlmann said, surrounded by humming stacks of computers in the WINK News technical center. The computers, connected to miles of color-coded wiring, already ensure the delivery of digital TV signals for local CBS and CW affiliates. “Nothing else is going to happen here.”

The switch to digital is not the same as high definition. A digital overthe-air signal simply means that the picture is sent as a series of 1s and 0s, to be decoded in your home and turned into a TV picture.

High definition means a higher resolution of picture quality. A standard television set has 480 lines of resolution, while an HD set can have 1080 lines, creating a dramatic increase in quality.

Though digital is not always high definition, high definition is always digital.

The FCC mandate only speaks to digital television. Whether stations want to go even further, into the realm of high definition, is up to them.

It’s a decision that ABC-7 must still make as it works toward the mandated switch date.

The Sarasota-based ABC affiliate does rebroadcast prime-time shows in high definition, but local news remains a standard definition affair.

“We’re looking at all of our options right now, to be perfectly honest,” said Jack Dillon, director of engineering for ABC-7.

The federal government does not provide any financial aid to local stations in the switch.

“The upgrade we’re looking at now, for the transmitter and everything we have to do just on that side of it, is significant,” Dillon said. “It’s approaching a million dollars, and that’s not counting everything we do on the inside.”

Going the next step — switching to high definition for local news, as WINK did — can cost a station millions more. WINK’s HD switch was an investment of more than $3 million for parent company Fort Myers Broadcasting, Stetson said.

“We knew this was coming,” he said, “so we had a plan to go digital.”

Because it was ahead of the curve (even WCBS in New York does not do local news in HD) and is capable of killing its analog signal ahead of schedule, the FCC asked WINK officials if they would be interested in going exclusively digital this summer. The company declined, concerned about alienating about 130,000 analogonly customers during hurricane season.

The costs of high definition go well beyond a new transmitter:

• Makeup consultants had to be hired to ensure everyone looks good in higher resolution.

• New in-studio cameras, worth $115,000 each, now shoot in a 16x9 ratio widescreen picture format which shows more to the left and right. But most viewers still watch the programming in the traditional, smaller 4x3 screen format, so cameramen had to adjust and ensure both widescreen and standard viewers received appropriate pictures.

• The WINK news instudio set, lighting and graphics had to be updated, to take full advantage of the higher quality picture.

• The station’s production control room was revamped with all new, state-of-the-art technology to allow for high definition broadcasts. During a newscast, a half-dozen workers run the show via thousands of lighted buttons and switches at arm’s length. The dark, silent room is steps from the whirring fans from the technical center’s stacks of computers. In tandem, the two rooms’ work helps broadcast the digital signal, already in compliance with the coming FCC mandate.

Stetson said the network has not seen a significant increase in viewers since debuting high definition local newscasts. He noted that it’s something viewers are starting to simply expect, as evidenced by the plethora of complaints that come in when sports programs on CBS, such as college football, are occasionally not shown in high definition.

Both WINK and ABC-7 have also begun public information campaigns on their airwaves to get word out about the 2009 mandated digital TV switch — even more of an investment on their part.

And with an especially large elderly market, Southwest Florida stations could potentially have the greatest proportion of lost viewers when analog signals are killed next February.

Stetson said WINK has the oldest designated market in the country, with an average age of over 46. He said viewers have already begun calling to inquire about the digital switch, though he expects some will not realize it has happened until after Feb. 18.

“When we turn our analog off, they’ll have no signal,” Stetson said, adding, “I don’t think it’s going to hit everybody until later.”