Most LV TV stations ready for digital switch

Malcolm Hall

Tuesday, March 12, 2002 | 11:02 a.m.

Two Las Vegas television stations -- KVBC Channel 3 and KVVU Fox 5 -- will not meet a May 1 federal deadline to begin digital broadcast and have filed for six-month extensions with the Federal Communications Commission.

Under a series of deadlines established in 1997 by the Federal Communications Commission, all commercial stations must provide digital signals by May 1 and all non-commercial stations a year later. By 2006 existing analog stations are supposed to go dark.

KVBC said a parts backlog prevented it from making the deadline. KVVU, while not providing a reason for its delay, said it would be on the air digitally by November. Other Las Vegas television stations either already broadcast digitally or will be on the air by May 1.

KLAS-TV 8 is digital, as is Univision Channel 15. KTNV-TV 13 said it will be on the air by May 1, as will KBLR TV 39 Telemundo.

"We were ready three years ago," said Scott Gentry, general manager at KBLR. "We bought a transmitter that was digital capable and we'll be ready to go."

Meanwhile, as television stations across the country race the federal mandate, only a handful of viewers in Las Vegas will be able to see the best of it because so few high definition capable television sets have been sold here.

The Consumer Electronics Association says nearly 1.5 million digitally equipped sets were sold in 2001, but only about 18 percent were equipped with the separate tuner required to receive the high definition vision -- HDTV -- which has 1,080 scan lines compared to the 360 lines delivered by analog sets and delivers a crisper picture.

"We're guessing (the number of) people capable of receiving HDTV in Las Vegas is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 100," said Jerry Agresti, chief technical officer for Norfolk, Va.-based Landmark Communications, which owns KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. KLAS broadcasts digitally over Channel 7.

All major networks now offer some variety of HDTV. ABC airs all of its primetime comedies and dramas and two or more movies each week. CBS airs its primetime dramas and comedies, along with NCAA Saturday football, the Masters professional golf tournament, the upcoming Final Four men's college basketball tournament and the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

Fox's primetime schedule is all high definition, while NBC's "Crossing Jordan," the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and selected Olympics events also were aired in the format. PBS provides a variety of high definition in its lineup.

But people are buying digital sets to use with their DVD players, not to receive on the air programming, said Kristin Lark, spokeswoman for consumer electronics retailer Good Guys of San Francisco.

"We carry 60 different kinds," Lark said. "Demand continues to be strong and prices are coming down. You can get a good quality upgradeable set for $2,000 to $3,000. But it isn't just about broadcast programs being high definition, but the difference when you watch a DVD movie. It's all about the picture."

Lark said while the vast majority of the new wide screen sets are capable of being upgraded to high definition with the purchase of a separate receiver, most people are buying the sets first and waiting until later to get the receivers to process the HDTV signal.

"From my perspective, the issue isn't in people having the sets, but the broadcasters having to provide the programming by 2006 for everyone to switch to high definition," she said.

Randy Phillips, audio video manager for the Good Guys store at 600 Mall Ring Drive in Henderson said sales of high definition sets are "awesome."

"I sell so much high definition but there is so little programming available in the Valley," he said. "As that signal becomes more available it will increase sales."

Despite the mixed sales signals, after May 1 television stations must operate both power-hungry analog and digital transmitters until at least 2006 with little chance to recoup their investments for years.

Agresti said the average cost for a television station to provide digital broadcasting is about $3 million to $5 million and to go completely high definition could take that number to $10 million, "because you have to replace cameras, audio, everything. We're laying the foundation to do that."

Moreover, Agresti said operating a digital transmitter is expensive.

"It costs a lot with the price of electricity the way it is to keep this transmitter running, so we'd like people to give it a really good look and try to fit it into their budgets," he said.

Good digital television equipment isn't cheap. Agresti said a projection set with receiver now costs about $2,500, and another $500 to $700 for the set-top box that enables high definition.

So as local stations ramp up their digital systems, they will have to wait until the public catches up and buys digital equipment before realizing any significant return on their investments, said Gene Greenberg, general manager at KVBC Channel 3.

"It's a low number (of HDTVs)," he said. "I've heard from 200 to a high of 500 sets. In the meantime, we'll be operating two television stations -- digital and analog -- with only one revenue stream. Our power bills will double to operate the digital transmitter, but no one can watch us."

Greenberg said KVBC has converted its control room to digital but because of a parts delay has yet to get its transmitter ready. The FCC has said it would consider waivers for such delays and Greenberg said the agency has been notified of the station's dilemma.

"You have to understand that hundreds of television stations are doing this at the same time," he said.

Tom Axtell, general manager of PBS station KLVX Channel 10 in Las Vegas, said it's the chicken and egg situation.

"If we don't have lots of high definition programs broadcasting, the consumer doesn't have the need to buy a set, but it's challenging to the broadcaster to spend the extra money to provide high definition programs," he said.

Axtell, whose station will turn on its digital transmitter before the deadline, said the commercial networks and PBS are right now requesting more new high-definition programs hoping that once people see the difference, they'll spend money to get it into their homes.

Axtell likened the situation to the early days of color television when producers shied from making color programs because of the cost, but quickly turned around after Walt Disney and a few others began doing it. People loved it, bought color sets and everybody started producing color programs.

"I think we'll see the same with high definition television," he said.

But because FCC rules that say 85 percent of television sets in any given market must be able to receive digital signals before stations turn off their analog transmitters in 2006 -- whichever comes first -- Greenberg thinks the problem hits closer to the pocket book and will delay the nationwide switchover.

"The law says 2006, but no one really believes that's going to happen, and you can imagine the response to Congress if all of a sudden people can't watch television," he said. "In multiple-set households that's going to be quite an expense."

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