> He's right, the FCC now requires TV stations to identify
> using only the analog number and FCC also requires stations
> to identify TV/DT when simulcast (and non-simulcast digital
> streams have to identify -DT).
>
> I'll research when in office Monday, but I recall these are
> in different places but not in 47CFR73. They are in
> supplemental rulings related to Dockets on DTV.
I'll be most interested to see the citations on this, since the rules, at least in Part 73, are at best unclear and at worst contradictory right now.
If you believe the data in the FCC's own CDBS database, there's no such thing as a "-DT" call. DTV broadcasts are licensed under the same facility ID number and thus the same callsign as the parent NTSC station, with the only difference in the "service" designation (DT instead of TV).
So for my local WXXI-TV, there are three records in the database: an analog license on channel 21, a DTV license on channel 16 and a DTV modified CP on channel 16. All are facility ID # 57274, and all bear the callsign "WXXI-TV" in CDBS. If you follow the ID rules in Part 73, it seems to me that the correct ID would therefore be "WXXI-TV Rochester" for both services. Again, if this has been contradicted in a supplemental ruling, I haven't seen it, but I'd like to.
There is, in any event, little reason for a thinking broadcaster to use an on-screen ID like "WCBS-TV2/DT56", since no viewer sees WCBS-TV's digital signal as "56," but rather as "2-1." As noted in another post above, the fact that the digital signal's riding somewhere in the 700 MHz range, rather than on the 54-60 MHz "channel 2," is irrelevant to the DTV viewer.
>
> So, if a station is WXYZ-TV on ch. 11 and has DTV on ch. 36
> the FCC expects i.d. to show WXYZ-TV & WXYZ-DT (or
> WXYZ-TV/DT) channel 11, and they also expect DTV PSIP to
> show 11.x and not 36.x (and if station is WXYZ(TV) then FCC
> expects WXYZ/WXYZ-DT) and if station WXYZ's DTV channel
> includes non-simulcast streams, each one has to i.d. as
> WXYZ-DT (i.e., UPN or weather channel).
>
> And even crazier, if station elects to keep DTV channel and
> return analog channel, the FCC says PSIP will forever remain
> the analog number - and any new user in town who maybe
> activates LP or DTV on the former analog spectrum has to
> identify using the former analog station's digital channel
> number. This is really viewer friendly!
>
> The FCC Rules on station identification and use of PSIP are
> kinda clunky and unbelievable.
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