FCC Gives Existing Stations First Channels for HDTV

WASHINGTON —  Federal regulators Thursday ruled that existing TV stations will be given the first channels for high-definition television, a move that effectively gives them control over what could become a multibillion-dollar broadcast service.

In licensing new services, the Federal Communications Commission often invites applications from all comers. But with HDTV, the five-member commission Thursday voted unanimously to grant channels to newcomers only if there were channels left over after existing stations had been offered one each.

Commission members argued that this approach would best serve twin goals of rapid introduction of HDTV, which promises to bring theater-quality sound and pictures to American homes, and eventual conversion of today’s TV channels to other purposes. Officials said HDTV could go on the air in the United States as early as 1996.

Critics have accused the commission of granting an enormous favor to the powerful broadcasting industry.

“A mechanism that sets aside channels for incumbent broadcasters is very troublesome and is conceptually at odds” with federal communications law, said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, executive director of the Media Action Project, a public interest group. Federal law encourages diversity of ownership of broadcast stations.

The FCC contends that HDTV will not constitute a new service but an improvement on an existing one. It also maintains that established broadcasters, with their technical expertise and financial resources, are in the best position to bring the new technology to the public.

Last year, using licenses that the FCC grants free of charge, TV stations took in revenue of about $15 billion, according to the National Assn. of Broadcasters. The industry is hoping to preserve its position if HDTV catches on with Americans, though the industry will still face HDTV competition from cable TV and satellite broadcasts.

Broadcasters had lobbied strongly for first rights to the HDTV channels.

FCC members, noting the criticism of their move, said TV stations getting an HDTV channel will eventually have to surrender the channel that they now use for conventional broadcasting, probably in about 15 years. “There’s no giveaway of a second channel,” said Sherrie Marshall, an FCC commissioner.

But at a meeting Thursday at which the vote was taken, two commissioners, Andrew Barrett and Ervin Duggan, conceded that future commissions might see it differently and allow stations to retain both an HDTV and conventional channel.