About DTV Transition & Media Reform

In February 2006, Congress passed an early 2009 "hard deadline" for the nation’s transition from analog to digital television (DTV) transmission. The bill reallocates more than $40 billion of TV broadcast spectrum for auction to wireless broadband services and to public safety. It also earmarks spectrum revenues to finance a converter box subsidy for all low- and middle-income consumers who rely on over-the-air TV -- a plan originally proposed by New America. With a hard deadline and consumer subsidy now law, New America is helping to lead an increasingly broad public interest coalition to address other, related issues in the DTV transition debate, including the expanded public interest obligations for broadcasters and the opening of unused TV channels in each geographic market for unlicensed community wireless broadband use.

Commercial broadcasters receive exclusive licenses to the most valuable frequencies of the public airwaves for free, allegedly in return for 'public interest obligations' that have steadily eroded. Now they have received far more valuable DTV licenses, allowing them to multicast six or more programming streams -- but also giving them the flexibility to offer paid services or to lease out this extra digital channel capacity. Along with the Public Interest, Public Airwaves Coalition of which we are a part, as well as the national Media and Democracy Coalition, New America continues to battle against the broadcasters’ lobbying efforts in Congress to achieve further subsidies such as "multi-channel" must-carry.