DIGITAL FIDGETING
L.A. TV exex range from antsy to anti
Arnold Kleiner, prexy and G.M. at Disney-owned KABC, was certain of only one thing.
"Not a single broadcaster in the country wants to do this," Kleiner, whose station drew channel 8 in the digital sweepstakes, said Tuesday. "It's going to be really expensive, and it won't increase ratings or revenues.
"The flipside is that digital is a good thing because it will ultimately deliver the consumer a better picture, if and when people buy those sets."
It is expected that consumers will need to purchase those TVs by 2006, the year the FCC has decreed that digital will become the exclusive method of transmission and analog will disappear. At that point, households will need to have at least one digital TV set or digital converter to receive any signal.
Several Los Angeles stations were likewise informed this week that their antenna height and power capacity under digital will prevent them from reaching as much of their audience during the transition between 1998 and 2006, due to the area's mountainous terrain.
For instance, KTLA (assigned digital channel 68) will reach just 80.8% of its current audience digitally, or about 900,000 homes, according to FCC estimates. KCBS (digital channel 60) is poised to reach just 81.1% of its present viewership, KNBC (digital channel 36) just 84.3%. That contrasts with 95.5% for KABC.
John Culliton, VP and G.M. for KCBS, said, "I can't imagine that we won't wind up with (signal) equity over the long haul. But frankly, we have a lot of questions about this ourselves."
KTLA VP-G.M. John Reardon claimed on Tuesday not to be terribly worried.
"It's impossible to gauge this concept from where we sit in today's world," Reardon said. "None of us want to have problems reaching viewers, but my feeling is that digital will create a lot of opportunities for broadcasters. I'm excited about the options it's going to open up for us."
Those options stand to include interactive applications and Internet access as part of the spectrum each station will control. The greatly improved picture quality of High-Definition TV (HDTV) and similar formats is also cited as a potential boon to consumers, though not necessarily a financial windfall for TV stations.
In fact, KNBC prexy and GM Carole Black said she has heard that the highly touted picture improvements "are mostly discernible when you see it side-by-side with a regular picture."
That may not justify the multimillion-dollar investment that every TV station in America (large and small) will be forced to make in order to bring itself up to digital speed, Black agreed. But, as she said, "It's the future."
"Our main concern remains that our viewers be served as well as they are now," Black added. "Since digital is where we need to go, we just want to be sure that our entire audience is able to come along with us."
That may take a while, given the hefty pricetag that is expected to be attached to digital receivers initially. Kleiner said that the few now available retail for about $3,000.
"Obviously, they will come down below $1,000," Kleiner said. "But they may never drop to the price level where TV sets are now. I'm not sure we will ever see a $300 digital TV set. But nobody knows yet. We're still very early in the game."
