San Diego TV Affiliates Headed for Space

Finally a Light at the End of the Fiber for SHVA?

San Diego TV Affiliates Headed for Space

By Gary Stigall, CSTE
KFMB-TV, Chapter 36 Chairman

San Diego's network TV affiliates will be among those added to DirecTV's lineup, finally ending the Satellite Home Viewer Act (SHVA) paperwork and phone headache of the past year. They say that several San Diego stations should be on their satellite by sometime in January: KFMB (CBS), KGTV (ABC), and KNSD (NBC). XETV (Fox) and KUSI (Ind.) have not confirmed whether they'll be included.

In a recent press release, DirecTV announced, "Upon the successful launch [in October] of the DIRECTV 1-R satellite into the 101 degree WL orbital slot, and by investing in technology upgrades at its two broadcast centers, DIRECTV will have the additional capacity to extend the delivery of local broadcast network channels."

San Diego would be among the 20 markets added. Fiber links from the stations will carry their signals to DirecTV's El Segundo facility.

The size and shape of home dishes will apparently allow them to receive all the DirecTV satellite broadcasts from 101 to 119 degrees west longitude .

KFMB, KGTV and KNSD have all been swamped with calls and letters asking for exemption from the SHVA. That act protects the copyrights of local stations from intrusion of signals via satellite within their grade B contour. Viewers who wanted to receive stations from San Francisco and Los Angeles via DirecTV had to apply for a waiver if they were considered by their zip code to be within the grade B contour of the affiliate in question.

The SHVA has been fraught with problems:

Viewers fume over having to get separate exemptions from each station.
Viewers fume over not having the choice to view what they want when they want it.
There's no waiver provision in the law for recreational vehicles which travel countrywide.
The three San Diego stations haven't always treated the exemptions equally. KNSD's UHF Langley-Rice Grade B coverage predictions cover less territory than it's VHF counterparts. Management at each station differs in the sympathy they show for people asking to be released from their advertising viewership base.
Local canyon terrain sometimes prevents reception even within the grade B contour.
The grade B contour was based on a predictive model from the 1950's which didn't take into account the terrain. Temecula is considered within the grade B contour of KGTV and KFMB though shadowed behind ridges at the Riverside county line.
Viewers in modern subdivisions with aesthetic covenants perceived that they couldn't, or simply didn't want to put up an adequate rooftop or attic-mounted antenna to pick-up San Diego stations.

Echostar V was launched September 23 to add local programming to the Dish Network's lineup of 500 channels. They haven't published a schedule, yet, and apparently intend to have stations pay for the haul to their uplink site.

Local TV via satellite to home local markets isn't currently allowed by the SHVA, due to expire soon. DirecTV and Echostar are counting on an SHVA reauthorization compromise bill worked out by the NAB and DirecTV to pass into law.

In a related development, DirecTV plans to provide customers in the next few months with set-top boxes which would decode the digital signals of their satellites AND terrestrial ATSC and NTSC, with seamless integration of their channel navigation services and no A/B switch required.

Web site contents ©1999 Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 36 San Diego. For more information, to become a member or a sponsor, or to make suggestions or comments, e-mail sbe36@broadcast.net. Write to P.O. Box 710702, San Diego, California 92171-0702.

Edited by Gary Stigall. Posted 4-Oct-99.