Filed at 5:15 p.m. ET
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - More industries will likely jump on the bandwagon to accelerate the transition to digital television and new, innovative programming will play a key role in pushing that move, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said on Tuesday.
The cable industry recently committed to Powell's voluntary plan of deadlines for carrying high-definition broadcast channels and he noted that much of what consumers want is on pay television services.
The transition to digital has been slowed in part by the lack of high-definition digital programming, the expensive television equipment required to receive the signals and the potential for piracy of content.
``You're seeing all sorts of interesting shows that are experimenting, it's really neat,'' Powell told a breakfast meeting of cable executives attending the National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference.
``What we don't know is what kind of chances the creative community will take in the future,'' he said. ``You all have some of the very best suited content for this (digital TV) format than anyone.''
``Everyone tells me the big sellers are sports and movies,'' Powell said, noting Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN and News Corp.'s Fox popular sports networks. ``These avid fans of these things ... are largely on these platforms and if they're not they're very likely to be in the near future.''
Television broadcasters like Viacom Inc.'s CBS network broadcasts much of its primetime lineup in high-definition and premium movie channels like HBO and Showtime also offer a channel with the higher-quality, crisper signals.
MEDIA OWNERSHIP
More broadcasters as well as consumer electronics manufacturers will likely commit to his plan in which he called on the major television networks to begin broadcasting at least half of their primetime lineups in digital by this fall and that digital tuners be included in new sets starting in 2004.
``Who will be next as the wheel turns, I don't know,'' he told reporters afterwards. ``I still have a lot of confidence that at the end of the day it will be all of them.''
Powell also told the cable industry that he would not rush out new media ownership rules that were struck down by a federal court because he wanted to make sure they would withstand judicial scrutiny.
``We're not going to be pushed on this until we are ready to do it in a way that I think is constructive, and the public interest is going to survive judicial scrutiny,'' Powell said.
The FCC has had a bad streak with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia which struck down a rule that prevented cable companies from reaching more than 30 percent of the market. The agency is in the process of rewriting it.
Another rule barring a company from owning a cable system and a local broadcast television station that serve the same market was also struck down and analysts do not expect it to be rewritten.
Even as the agency moves forward with re-examining the ownership rules and whether they are necessary, Powell said the media sphere was largely competitive.
``I think there's still pretty energized competitive pressures for who gets on ... when,'' he told the executives. ``I think there's things to watch there, but for the moment I would describe it as a healthy market environment.''
