Spending Bill Would Boost Aid for Digital TV Transition

Federal plans for the 2009 transition to digital television would be slightly tweaked under language affixed to the Senate version of the war supplemental spending bill.

An amendment that would assist broadcasters and TV viewers in rural areas in the run-up to the transition was adopted by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week.

The House passed its version of the supplemental spending bill on May 15. The Senate plans to begin debate on its bill Tuesday.

The digital TV amendment was offered by senior Senate appropriators Daniel K. Inouye , D-Hawaii, and Ted Stevens , R-Alaska, who are also chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The provision would boost Commerce Department grants designed to ease the digital transition for small TV stations that broadcast low-power signals and translator TV stations that extend other stations’ signals into rural areas.

The law that set the deadline for the digital TV transition authorized $65 million in fiscal 2009 to reimburse low-power and translator TV stations for the cost of the equipment they will have to buy to upgrade their signals to digital. As written, the funding could not be disbursed until fiscal 2010, however.

Inouye and Stevens’ provision would increase the aid, authorizing $65 million each year for three years, from 2009 to 2012. It also would make the grants available earlier — starting the day after the digital transition in 2009. The language was drawn from a bill approved by the Commerce panel in March.

The amendment also would give the Commerce Department agency that is handling the digital TV transition authority to shift certain money around within its planning budget.