EDITORIALS.(Government needs to move faster on telecommunications deregulations; CBS/Mitsubishi deals should help digital television)(Editorial)

Shuffling deck chairs

The total deregulatory issue was joined in Washington last week as a delegation of network affiliates followed their network leaders to town to argue their side of things. To review the bidding: the networks are asking for total deregulatory relief on ownership issues so that they can compete with all the relatively unhindered media--cable, satellites, telephones, the Internet--in the rapidly changing media marketplace. The affiliates want to keep the 35% national cap on TV ownership, which acts most importantly to keep the networks in line. There are many other ownership dereg issues on the table, but the cap is where the rubber meets the road.

In the long run what is at stake is the continuation of free, over-the-air broadcasting. In the short run this is a battle over program compensation: the affiliates wanting to continue the present system, the networks determined to end it. It's clear to us that something has to give. The networks, essentially, are loss operations; only one is truly profitable in any given year. If they don't get relief they will either close down or become cable networks, in an instant obtaining the dual revenue steams all broadcasters need to compete in the new television millennium.

This page, of course, has been for total deregulation for, oh, 68 years. We never thought it was the government's role to be anything but a spectrum traffic cop. That remains our point of view, although we understand step-by-step deregulation may be the wisest course. Even the networks that embrace it today were late coming to this party; they've never asked for more than incremental deregulation along the way.

We'll just say this. If those with policymaking power want to do something to give free broadcasting a competitive break, they better get to it. AT&T will have everything else sewed up by Christmas.

A break in the dam

At last, it's tine to buy that big-screen digital set. Finally, there will be a critical mass of prime time, high-definition programming to watch, Just when we thought it might take years.

It's all because of a deal stuck between CBS and Mitsubishi, the Japanese set manufacturer, to transfer the network's preexisting 35 mm film product--up to 15 hours a week--to 1080i high definition. The other networks will surely follow suit, and digital television will be on its way.

The possibility has been there all along. Most of prime time--as much as 80%--has been produced in 35 mm film from the medium's genesis, beginning with black and white and continuing through color. And 35 mm, of course, is the film equivalent of HDTV. The only thing standing in the way has been the film-to-tape transfer costs, about $20,000 an hour.

That's where Mitsubishi comes in, essentially stepping into the patronage role played by RCA in the introduction of color. Mitsubishi's self-interest in this generation parallels that of RCA in the 1950s and 60s--it wants to sell sets. No programming, no set sales. Thus its enthusiasm for the CBS proposal to subsidize the transfer costs in return for mentions before each show. In the history of digital television, this will go down as one of the more brilliant quid pro quos.

Now, about buying that digital set: Caveat emptor. FCC Chairman William Kennard wouldn't be having his May 20 roundtable with the consumer electronics industry and others if all was well with that end of the digital business. As you've read here before, there is as yet no interoperability among sets and media, nor is there an agreed-upon system of copyright protection. This new compact between Mitsubishi and CBS just makes it more urgent that the set side of television get 'its act together.