10.861: Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program

10.861

Inactive

Rural Utilities Service [USDA]

Aug. 13, 2015

Aug. 7, 2014

As part of the nation's transition to digital television, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required all television broadcasters to convert their transmitters to broadcast digital signals by June 12, 2009. The goal of this conversion was a television system that makes more efficient use of the radio spectrum. Decreasing the use of spectrum by television channels freed up spectrum to enable the introduction of new wireless telecommunications services such as mobile wireless Internet access. In order to allocate spectrum to new uses, stations had to transition their main transmitter to the new broadcast system and digital no later than June 2009. While stations must broadcast their main transmitter signal in digital, many rural stations have yet to complete a full digital transition of their stations across all equipment. Rural stations often have translators serving small or isolated areas. The 2009 FCC deadline did not apply to translators; in 2011 the FCC adopted a final deadline for analog-to-digital conversion of all translators by September 1, 2015. Because of this, translators have been allowed to continue broadcasting in analog, and stations are still in the process of converting some of their translators to digital. Some rural stations also have not fully converted their production and studio equipment to digital, which has impaired their ability to provide the same quality local programming that they provided in analog. The digital transition has also created some service gaps where households that received an analog signal are now unable to receive a digital signal. For rural households the digital transition has meant in some cases diminished over-the-air public television service. These rural households are the focus of the Agency’s Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program.

B - Project Grants

The applicant must be a public television station that serves a rural area regardless of whether it also serves an urban area. (Rural area means any area of the United States not included within the boundaries of any incorporated or unincorporated city, village, or borough having a population in excess of 20,000 inhabitants.) The applicant must also be required to convert from analog to digital transmission under the rules of the FCC. For the purpose of this grant program, a public television station must be an organization which (1) qualifies for Federal funding under Section 396(k) of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, and (2) which is either: (a) under the rules and regulations of the FCC in effect on November 2, 1978, eligible to be licensed as a noncommercial educational broadcast station and which is owned and operated by a public agency or nonprofit private foundation, corporation, or association; or (b) owned and operated by a municipality and which transmits only noncommercial programs for education purposes.

Anyone who receives the improved digital television signal from a rural public television station or attends an educational institution that uses public television in its curriculum.