Published: TV Technology magazine

Issue:  15 June 1998



What Do the Numbers Mean 

(Analysis of the DTV Applications)



by Joe Fedele



WASHINGTON

  An analysis of the first 77 DTV applications filed with the commission may provide the industry with its 

first glimpse of how the transition to digital television is progressing. 

  Some believe it may be too early to tell what, if anything, can be deduced by these figures. The fact that 

approximately 60 percent of the stations that filed a DTV application did so in the 30 days prior to the 

deadline may not be an indication of uncertainty at all.

  Gary Cavell, senior partner with Cavell, Mertz and Perryman, an engineering and consulting firm based in 

Fairfax, Va., believes the late February release of the Petition for Reconsideration of the FCC's 5th and 6th 

Report and Orders was partly responsible for why many broadcasters held off in their applications. The 

petition imposed several important changes such as reallocating channel assignments, increasing UHF 

power levels, allowing antenna beam tilt provisions and adding  interference standards.

  It was prudent for broadcasters to wait until all the information was available, Cavell said. "All of these 

considerations take time to analyze," he said.

  John Morgan, assistant division chief for Video Services at the FCC's Mass Media Bureau, also pointed 

out that revamping for DTV is a complicated process. "I am not surprised that most [of the construction 

permit applications] came in toward the end of the relatively short filing period," he said. "So far, things are 

going better than I expected."

  Several peculiarities can also be interpreted in different ways - such as the fact that more stations in 

markets 51 to 75 filed for DTV construction permits (CP) than in the 31 to 50 markets, and that an equal 

number of stations in markets 101 to 211 applied for CPs.

  Morgan said that these figures may be misleading if they are compared as raw numbers. Simply put, there 

are more total stations in markets 101 to 211 than there are in 31 to 50. Then again, stations in the larger 

markets tend to possess greater capital resources than licensees in small markets.  

  Although it is premature to draw long-lasting conclusions about the filings, one thing is clear - market size 

and capital restraints do not always rule the decision-making process where DTV applications are 

concerned.

  KHVO-DT, Hilo, Hawaii, and KITV-DT, Honolulu, were the first two stations in the country to air a non-

experimental DTV signal. The fact that they are in the 69th market had little to do with their decision to go 

digital. The fact that there was not a single DTV receiver in the market made no difference either.

  According to Cavell and Joe Davis, the engineering consultants that worked on the project, the decision to 

file an application and go on-air "was a studio-driven decision," Cavell said. "Coming to the end of a lease, 

in a plant that was out of space and equipment that was beyond its useful life, was an easy decision to make. 

It was just as easy to relocate and equip the station in digital than it would have been in analog. Adding the 

DTV transmission capability was not that much more [difficult]."

  Another example of breaking with tradition came from WKOW-TV, an ABC affiliate in Madison, Wisc. 

Few might have expected that a station operating in the 84th market would have been one of the first to 

apply for a DTV CP. 

  But WKOW-TV appears to be the only licensee in that market that feels that strongly enough about DTV 

to file for an application. "There is a lot of curiosity [among the other broadcasters in the market], but I 

don't see them doing transmitter build-outs or anything [to the scale of what WKOW-TV is doing]," said 

Steve Zimmerman, director of engineering for the station. "I think some of them are also watching what we 

do in the hopes of learning from us and possibly avoiding mistakes."