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Digital Voices, 10/28/99

Digital Voices

28 October 1999

Time Is Right For Digital Television Proceeding

With so much focus on the new millennium, now less than 70 days away, and the reviews of our past and predictions for the future that accompany it, we may lose sight of the adage: There's no time like the present. Last week, Vice President Albert Gore officially asked the Federal Communications Commission to begin an examination of the public interest obligations of digital broadcasters. The timing is excellent. Starting in November, the majority of US households should have access to digital television signals for the first time.

The Vice President is responding to recommendations I and 21 colleagues agreed upon in a report to the President called Charting the Digital Broadcasting Future. Specifically, the Vice President is asking the FCC to examine four areas in which digital broadcasters can serve the public interest as they are licensed to do: improving the quality of political discourse, providing more accurate disaster information quicker, expanding access to television programming for the disabled, and encouraging greater diversity in television programming, employment and ownership.

In addition, my colleagues and I, who made up the Presidential Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Broadcasters (PIAC), also made recommendations concerning, among other things, disclosure of public interest activities by broadcasters, improving education through digital broadcasting, community outreach, public affairs programming, and public service announcements. All of the PIAC recommendations should be examined by the FCC in an upcoming proceeding.

In addition to the Vice President's letter, the FCC received this year a petition from a national, broad-based coalition called People for Better Television. The coalition has also asked the FCC to begin a public proceeding to determine how digital television broadcasters should fulfill their role as "public trustees of the airwaves."

As the home of the PIAC legacy, the Benton Foundation strongly supports the Vice President's call for FCC action and People for Better Television's petition. As we enter the Digital Age and count down the days to a new millennium, there is no better time for an examination of television's role and potential for the 21st century.

Charles Benton
Chairman
Benton Foundation

(c)Benton Foundation, 1999. Redistribution of this email publication -- both internally and externally -- is encouraged if it includes this message. The Benton Foundation's Communications Policy and Practice Project is a nonpartisan initiative to strengthen public interest efforts in shaping the emerging National Information Infrastructure (NII). It is Benton's conviction that the vigorous participation of the nonprofit sector in policy debates and demonstration projects will help realize the public interest potential of the NII.

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Last updated: 28 October 1999 kjt