The current state of HDTV in Portland Maine - from Doug Finck of MyPortland and the CW Portland

After my open letter of all Portland, Maine TV stations, the Maine Association of Broadcasters, and the FCC I received only one extensive and well thought out reply. It was from Doug Finck, General Manager of WPXT and Station Manger of WPME (I hope I got that right, Doug). I asked his permission to post his response on my blog because he was so thoughtful and this is well worth the read, I promise.

Thanks for the recent letter and thanks especially for the kind words about
our HD operation. We are very excited about HD, have built a first-class
HD RF system, and look forward to acquiring more HD product (including local
product) in the coming year.
As you know, we have no problem passing through
a network-delivered HD feed. Our two networks are among the most HD-rich
networks. As of 1/1/08, The CW will be programming 78% of their primetime
programming in HD. Even better, MyTV expects to have 100% of their
primetime programming in HD!

Beyond the network HD feeds that we are currently broadcasting there
are two issues; content provided in HD and our ability to move it through our
plant. Let's start with the content. Currently, none of the
syndicators is sending our programming in HD (Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond,
The Simpsons, etc.) In some cases they have HD product but don't send it,
in other cases, their programs were not shot in HD and will never truly be
HD. We expect that in the coming year as more stations get their HD
systems online, syndicators wil increase their HD offerings. For
example, Raycom Sports, which syndicates ACC football and basketball, is
targeting the fall of 2008 to provide us with HD feeds for their games.
Other syndicators have said that they are working on plans and timetables to let
us know when their reruns and first-run programs will be offered in HD. I
think it's safe to assume that the major syndicators (FOX, Sony, CBS, MGM, etc.)
will all continue to move in that direction. Hopefully they'll do it
sooner rather than later!

The second issue is our ability to work with HD content. We have
a capital expenditure plan that will give us increased local HD capacity in the
coming 14 months. Our plan is to be able to accept HD in one of several
formats, ingest it, and broadcast it (as opposed to being limited to the
pass-through of "live" network feeds) by the digital conversion date in
February, 2009. It is a multi-step plan that will first allow us to
manipulate an HD stream, then with the addition of servers dedicated to HD,
store and retrieve HD content.

As for local HD content, we have two HD field cameras which we are
using for some of our local shooting. Increasingly we are shooting some
footage in HD as well as the regular SD format which constitutes the bulk of our
shooting. Two of our edit suites are HD-capable already and we expect the
other two to be upgraded in the coming 14 months. That will put us in
position where we can shoot, edit, ingest and playback HD video! As you
may know, we create and broadcast an enormous amout of local entertainment
programming, ranging from the OurMaine Magazine series (with four different
programs) to our Destination shows, our Top Maine Model shows, our poker shows,
as well as a host of specials. We expect to be creating all of those shows
in HD by the conversion date in 2009.

Finally, you questioned the MAB's role in the conversion.
Ironically, we were in discussions about that recently and we are all waiting
for the NAB to share with us their plans and timetable. You are right that
a large promotional campaign is needed to inform and educate the public.
Whether it is done in cooperation with the NAB, the MAB, ad-hoc groups of
stations, or individual stations, it is a huge challenge and we need to focus on
it in 2008.

I hope you are correct about the increasing number of people watching
over-the-air TV! According to the most recent Nielsen survey, 86% of the
homes in the Portland-Auburn DMA (an 11-county area) receive their primary
television programming from cable or satellite providers, leaving just 14% of
the homes with TV's watching over-the-air. Both satellite services are
racing to add local HD signals to their offerings. We are working with all
of the cable companies to urge them to offer our HD broadcasts (Time Warner has
committed to adding both of our HD signals to 100% of their homes in the DMA and
are doing the technical work to make that happen). As you know, there is
no better HD signal than the one that arrives at your house, directly from our
transmitter, with no processing or handling by any third party and best of
all...it's free! When was the last time that the best product availabe was
free?

I was impressed with the depth of your comments and would love to hear
any thoughts you have in the future about what we can do to improve our digital
operation and make the digital conversion less painful for everyone.

Thanks,Doug