Similar to the way German and British troops in World War I observed Christmas with a truce, opposing sides in a digital broadcasting battle in northwestern Oklahoma have declared a temporary peace.
Woodward low-power television station KOMI will turn off its transmitter Sunday afternoon to allow viewers in the area to watch a high definition broadcast of the Super Bowl via the digital signal from Oklahoma City's KOKH-25.
"We're going to do some repair work on our transmitter on Sunday afternoon following the Baptist Church service,” said KOMI owner Doug Williams. "That will allow them to pick up the (KOKH) HD signal.”
The truce will end after the Super Bowl, but the temporary peace will allow cable operators like Glenn Gore of Taloga to provide the HD signal to their subscribers. Gore said the lack of a digital broadcast signal from KOKH has become an issue for his subscribers who bought expensive HD-capable televisions especially for big events such as the Super Bowl.
KOMI decided on the repair work after consulting with officials from the Federal Communications Commission.
"The FCC does not have any rules and regulations governing the situation,” Williams said. "So they asked me if I would turn my station off during the Super Bowl for repairs.”
When the KOMI transmitter goes down Sunday, viewers with high definition televisions and cable connections or an over-the-air antenna will be able to watch the Super Bowl broadcast in HD.
KOMI recently increased the power of its transmitter from 160 watts to 15,000, which had knocked the KOKH broadcast off over a wide area of northwestern Oklahoma.
"We're not concerned about KOKH,” Williams said. "We're concerned about our friends in Taloga. The cable operator in Taloga, a mom-and-pop operation, he's been there for years. And he's lost some customers as a result of not being able carry the digital broadcast of the Super Bowl.”
Still, it's only a temporary reprieve for viewers, said John Rossi, KOKH general manager.
"It still hasn't been resolved,” Rossi said. "It will be fine for Sunday so that people will get the digital broadcast of the game, which is great. The problem is, effective Feb. 17, 2009, everything is going to be on digital and those people aren't going to get the signal, period.”
Taloga cable operator Gore also was looking past Sunday's Super Bowl, which begins shortly after 5 p.m.
"This is good news for my customers, but there still exists the situation of February 2009 when the analog cutoff occurs and KOKH turns off their analog signal,” Gore said. "Since KOMI overrides KOKH's digital signal, there will be no way for viewers out here to watch KOKH at all.”
Williams said the obvious answer to resolving the situation would be to change the frequency on which KOMI broadcasts. But adjacent frequencies are taken by Oklahoma City television stations and it would cost thousands of dollars to buy new equipment to allow a change to other frequencies.
"It's not as simple as that solution sounds,” Williams said.
