NAB opposes ‘quiet period’

The NAB opposes a quiet period that would interrupt carriage negotiations between local broadcasters and pay television distributors around the time of the DTV transition.

The cable industry is promoting the idea of such a period to make sure carriage disputes don’t interfere with the transition to digital next February. The proposal would prevent local TV stations from pulling their signals from Dec. 31, 2008, to May 31, 2009.

“There is no chance that consumers will confuse a retransmission consent dispute that began in December or January with some kind of equipment failure or other snafu connected to the DTV transition in February,” Marsha MacBride, NAB’s executive VP of legal and regulatory affairs, wrote in a letter to the FCC.