Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting: Innovation and Development or a ...

116 COMMUNICATIONS & STRATEGIESthe US market is equivalent to HDTV. HDTV transmission requires the wholebandwidth of an analogue NTSC signal. Powerful broadcasters began tomarket HDTV at the end of 1980s in order to replace NTSC in the USA (9)and they tried to hold on to the extra TV channels allotted for televisionservices in every city (10) . This resulted in FCC’s provision of spectrum freeof-chargeto virtually all of the current television broadcasters to provide forparallel transmission of ‘advanced television services’ in the 1996Telecommunication Act. The idea is that broadcasters will give back theiranalogue resources to the FCC once simulcasting has ended in 2006.The broadcasting industry argued that it wanted to replace NTSC with ahigher-quality standard. It did not want to change its business strategy oracquire more resources for new services and new forms of revenue. Thisenabled incumbent broadcasters to maintain their dominant position in theterrestrial broadcasting market and hindered their competitors' entrance.Later, when the licenses had been granted, the broadcasters changed someof their arguments and in growing recognition of the all-cost-no-new-revenuecharacter of the new technology, claimed that if they were required tobroadcast HDTV in their newly assigned frequencies, it would be the end oflocal broadcasting (11) . At this point in time, they were arguing for thenecessity to use resources for multi-service provision in order to gain newrevenues and thus be able to switch over to digital transmission.From a legal point of view, US broadcasters are allowed to use theresources for multi-service provision. This is pronounced in the "broadcastspectrum flexibility amendment" in the Telecommunication Act of 1996 :"If the commission (FCC) determines to issue additional licenses for advancedtelevision services, the commission shall adopt regulations that allow the holders ofsuch licenses to offer such ancillary or supplementary services on designatedfrequencies as may be consistent with public interest, convenience, and necessity".This has incited resistance from other market players that are interestedin the spectrum, especially, those from the "land mobile" and computer(9) This was a lobbying strategy against Land Mobile. By the end of the 1980s, players from"Land Mobile" industries applied for these resources to use them for mobile communicationsystems. Broadcasters, led by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), came up withthe argument that these resources were needed to introduce HDTV.(10) For example, in Washington, networks and independent stations broadcast on channels 4,5, 7, and 9 on the VHF and 20, 26, 32 and 50 on UHF. The rest of the designated broadcast TVchannels, 2 through 69, were vacant and the situation was similar in every city.(11) Exactly the same argument was used in the lobbying for “holding on” the frequencies in late1980s, where they argued that “if the broadcasters did not gain resources for HDTV, it would bethe end of local broadcasting” illustrating the broadcasters hidden agenda.