Overview

Peter B. Seel, Ph.D. & Michel Dupagne, Ph.D.*

* Peter Seel is Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and Technical Communication, Colorado State University (Fort Collins, Colorado). Michel Dupagne is Associate Professor, School of Communication, University of Miami (Coral Gables, Florida).

The period between 2002 and 2004 is a crucial watershed stage for the diffusion of digital television (DTV) in North America, Europe, and Japan. In the United States, two key deadlines imposed during this period by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for broadcast stations will become a benchmark for the adoption of this technology. All full-power commercial broadcasters were expected to commence DTV operations by May 1, 2002. Non-commercial stations have an extra year to comply with this obligation. Simply mandating these deadlines to begin transmitting a digital television signal does not automatically guarantee that there will be a significant volume of DTV programming delivered to American homes, but it does signify that the transition to DTV broadcasting in the United States is moving forward. This is equally true for Japanese and European digital television, although European broadcasters have not all rolled out DTV service at the same pace and have, for now, ruled out HDTV transmission.

This very expensive conversion from analog to digital television broadcasting is the most significant change in global broadcast standards since color images were added in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the dream of one global television standard that might replace the incompatible analog NTSC, PAL, and SECAM regional standards has failed...