House DTV Hearing in Brooklyn, NY

On Friday the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Government Management held a field hearing in New York City seeking an update on the digital television transition. WABC-TV news anchor Bill Ritter told the Subcommittee about the efforts of his station and others in the New York City market to inform viewers of the upcoming transition. Federal Communications Commission Media Bureau chief Monica Desai testified that television broadcasters collectively aired more than 1 million digital-TV-transition announcements (632,677 public-service announcements and 520,652 crawls, snipes or tickers) in the most recent quarter. However, Mark Lloyd of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights testified that the nation is not ready for the DTV transition because there is too little funding for research, education and outreach. National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Meredith Attwell Baker also testified, saying that DTV-to-analog converter-box-coupon program subcontractor IBM "eliminated" a backlog of coupon requests. Some in Congress complained that the NTIA did not take into account the administrative costs of reissuing expired coupons, which so far total more than the 6 million that have been redeemed. Assist Sec Baker said the NTIA is working with IBM to make sure that "as many coupons as possible can be distributed." She that more than 6 million coupons have been redeemed. The redemption rate was 44%, she added, which means that 56%, or more than 6 million, have gone unredeemed for one reason or another. Those could include being lost, forgotten, or simply not used by those who applied for them but did not need them. The money for all of those coupons -- $40 apiece -- is now available for issuing new coupons, but there may not be sufficient administrative costs to cover mailing out and processing them. The NTIA has $160 million to spend on administrative costs.