Washington -- Fox Television Stations, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., is objecting to proposed federal rules that would require the broadcast of public service announcements designed to educate American TV viewers about the impending digital TV transition.

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Wow, odd; I actually agree with their complaint! The complaint has NOTHING to do with the actual DTV transition itself, but rather complaining that the FCC/Govt wants TV stations to pony up free air time to promote DTV PSAs instead of the FCC/Govt buying the stations valuable ad time themselves to air their PSAs.

I would think that perhaps the networks would welcome the ads. Wouldn't the ad timeslot immediately followng the PSA have some significant value if sold to someone like BestBuy or Circuit City? First, you have this doom-and-gloom you're-tv-is-going-to-die PSA followed up by BestBuy telling you all about how their entire stock of new TVs wil fix the problem and give you an unbelievable HD picture and GeekSquad can put it all in for you... You just have to market your ad time correctly and it all works out. It's almost like a double timeslot for the retailer.

The airwaves belong to the public. As scary as it sounds, the FCC is the voice of the public when it comes to dealing with the networks. If the requirement is applied to all of the networks, then I don't see the problems.