[Federal Register Volume 68, Number 138 (Friday, July 18, 2003)]
[Notices]
[Pages 42680-42683]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 03-18192]


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DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Rural Utilities Service


Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program

AGENCY: Rural Utilities Service, USDA.

ACTION: Notice of funds availability.

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SUMMARY: The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announces a new grant 
program to finance the conversion of television services from analog to 
digital broadcasting for public television stations serving rural 
areas. For Fiscal Year 2003, $15 million in grants will be made 
available through a national competition to enable public television 
stations which serve substantial rural populations to continue serving 
their coverage areas.

DATES: Applications for grants will be accepted as of the date of this 
notice through September 16, 2003. All applications must be delivered 
to RUS or bear postmark no later than September 16, 2003. Comments 
regarding the information collection requirements under the Paperwork 
Reduction Act must be received on or before September 16, 2003, to be 
assured of consideration.

ADDRESSES: Applications shall be submitted to Roberta D. Purcell, 
Assistant Administrator, Telecommunications Program, Rural Utilities 
Service, USDA, STOP 1590, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 
20250-1590.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Roberta D. Purcell, Assistant 
Administrator, Telecommunications Program, Rural Utilities Service, 
STOP 1590, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20250-1590, 
Telephone (202) 720-9554, Facsimile (202) 720-0810.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Information Collection and Recordkeeping Requirements

    In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 
chapter 35), RUS invites comments on this information collection for 
which RUS intends to request approval from the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB). These requirements are pending emergency clearance by 
OMB.
    Comments on this notice must be received by September 16, 2003.
    Comments are invited on (a) whether the collection of information 
is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, 
including whether the information will have practical utility; (b) the 
accuracy of the agency's estimate of burden including

[[Page 42681]]

the validity of the methodology and assumption used; (c) ways to 
enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be 
collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of 
information on those who are to respond, including through the use of 
appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological 
collection techniques or other forms of information technology.
    Comments may be sent to F. Lamont Heppe, Jr., Director, Program 
Development and Regulatory Analysis, Rural Utilities Service, U.S. 
Department of Agriculture, 1400 Independence Ave., SW., Stop 1522, Room 
4034 South Building, Washington, DC 20250-1522.
    Title: Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program.
    Type of Request: New collection.
    Estimate of Burden: Public reporting burden for this collection of 
information is estimated to average 21 hours per response.
    Respondents: Not-for-profit institutions; State, Local or Tribal 
Government.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 50.
    Estimated Number of Responses per Respondent: 1.12.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden on Respondents: 1,168 hours.
    Copies of this information collection can be obtained from Michele 
Brooks, Program Development and Regulatory Analysis, at (202) 690-1078.
    All responses to this information collection and recordkeeping 
notice will be summarized and included in the request for OMB approval. 
All comments will also become a matter of public record.

General Information

    As part of the nation's evolution to digital television, the 
Federal Communications Commission has ordered all television 
broadcasters to initiate the broadcast of a digital television signal 
by May 1, 2003, and to cease analog television broadcasts on December 
31, 2006. About half of the nation's 357 public television stations did 
not meet the deadline to initiate digital broadcasting, and have 
received extensions to as late as May 1, 2004, to do so.
    The Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, 
and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2003, authorized $51,941,000 
for the Distance Learning and Telemedicine program. The Committee 
Recommendations specify that of the funds provided for Distance 
Learning and Telemedicine, $15,000,000 should be made available in 
grants for public broadcasting systems to meet this goal. The Committee 
further recognizes that these stations will have considerable financial 
difficulty in meeting that deadline.
    Public television stations rely largely on community financial 
support to operate. In many rural areas the cost of the transition to 
digital broadcasting may exceed community resources. Since rural 
communities depend on public television stations for services ranging 
from educational course content in their schools to local news, 
weather, and agricultural reports, any disruption of public television 
broadcasting would be detrimental.
    Initiating a digital broadcast requires the installation of a new 
antenna, transmitter or translator, and new digital program management 
facilities consisting of processing and storage systems. Public 
television stations use a combination of transmitters and translators 
to serve the rural public. If the public television station is to 
perform program origination functions, as most do, digital cameras, 
editing and mastering systems are required. A new studio-to-tower site 
communications link may be required to transport the digital broadcast 
signal to each transmitter and translator. The capability to broadcast 
some programming in a high definition television format is inherent in 
the digital television standard, and this can require additional 
facilities at the studio. These are the new components of the digital 
transition.
    In designing the national competition for the distribution of these 
grant funds, priority is given to public television stations serving 
the areas that would be most unable to fund the digital transition 
without a grant. The largest sources of funding for public television 
stations are public membership and business contributions. In rural 
areas, lower population density reduces the field of membership, and 
rural areas have fewer businesses per capita than urban and suburban 
areas. Therefore, rurality is a primary predictor of the need for grant 
funding for a public television station's digital transition. In 
addition, some rural areas have per capita income levels that are lower 
than the national average, and public television stations covering 
these areas in particular are likely to have difficulty funding the 
digital transition. As a result, the consideration of the per capita 
income of a public television station's coverage area is a secondary 
predictor of the need for grant funding. Finally, some public 
television stations may have, or may meet in their communities, 
critical needs, and a third scoring factor for critical need will 
account for conditions that make these public television stations less 
likely to accomplish the digital transition without a grant.

Definitions

    As used in this notice:
    Consortium means a combination or group of public television 
stations.
    Digital television, or DTV, means a new television system which 
will replace the current analog system, which was designed by and is 
referred to as the National Television Standards Committee, or NTSC, 
system. The standard for digital television was adopted by the Federal 
Communications Commission on December 24, 1996, after being developed 
by the Advanced Television Standards Committee, or ATSC.
    Digital television coverage area means the geographic area that 
will be covered by a public television station after its digital 
transition. This shall be defined using the Irregular Terrain Model 
(Longley-Rice model) developed by and available from the National 
Telecommunications and Information Administration at http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/itm.html. For translators only, an applicant may 
define the digital television coverage area using an alternative means, 
which must be explained fully in the application and is subject to 
acceptance by the RUS.
    Digital transition means a conversion from analog television 
broadcasting to digital television broadcasting. To perform the digital 
transition according to Federal Communications Commission rules, a 
broadcaster must initiate digital television broadcasting while 
continuing to operate analog television broadcasting, to enable viewers 
time to acquire digital television reception capability, and 
subsequently discontinue analog television broadcasting.
    Distance learning means a digital public television broadcast from 
one area, whether rural or not, to a school, library, home, or other 
end-user site located in a rural area, for the purpose of providing 
educational and cultural programming.
    High definition television, or HDTV, means an enhanced television 
service which is authorized by the Federal Communications Commission as 
part of the digital television standard.
    Public television station means a television broadcast station, 
which (1)(A) under the rules and regulations of the Federal 
Communications Commission in effect on November 2, 1978, is eligible to 
be licensed as a

[[Page 42682]]

noncommercial educational broadcast station and which is owned and 
operated by a public agency or nonprofit private foundation, 
corporation, or association, or (B) is owned and operated by a 
municipality and which transmits only noncommercial programs for 
education purposes, and which (2) qualifies for Federal funding under 
section 396(k) of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Public 
television station facilities, for the purposes of this Notice, include 
associated television translators and studio-to-transmitter/translator 
communications links.
    Rural area means any area of the United States that is not in an 
urban area.
    Rural Utilities Service, or RUS, is an agency of the United States 
Department of Agriculture which will administer the Public Television 
Station Digital Transition Grant Program.
    Total project cost means the estimated sum of expenditures 
necessary for a public television station to perform the digital 
transition for all of the rural population in its digital television 
coverage area. This would include RUS grant funds requested, and 
funding contributions for this purpose from other organizations, 
including the Federal government.
    Urban area means any area of the United States included within the 
boundaries of any incorporated or unincorporated city, village, or 
borough having a population in excess of 20,000 inhabitants.

Applicant Eligibility

    Eligibility for grants is limited to public television stations 
that serve a rural area, and consortia of public television stations, 
where each public television station in the consortium serves a rural 
area. Public television stations which serve urban areas in addition to 
a rural area are eligible to apply for grants under this Notice.

Eligible Projects

    Grants shall be made to enable applicants to perform digital 
transitions of television broadcasting serving rural areas. Grant funds 
may be used to acquire, by purchase or lease, and install, facilities 
and software necessary to the digital transition. Grant funds may also 
be used for associated engineering and environmental studies necessary 
to this implementation. When facilities are acquired by lease, up to 
three years' lease costs shall be eligible for grant funding.

Maximum Amounts of Grants

    Grants shall be limited in amount to $2 million where the applicant 
is an individual public television station. Where the applicant is a 
consortium of public television stations, the grant limit is the total 
of $2 million for the first station plus $1 million for each additional 
public television station in the consortium, up to a maximum of $5 
million. Only one grant will be made to a public television station or 
consortium.

Eligible Purposes of Grants

    (a) Digital transmitters and translators, including all facilities 
required to initiate DTV broadcasting. All broadcast facilities 
acquired with grant funds shall be capable of delivering DTV 
programming and HDTV programming, at both the interim and final channel 
and power authorizations.
    (b) To be an eligible grant purpose, an expenditure must be made 
after the application deadline specified elsewhere in this Notice. 
Expenditures made prior to this deadline are not eligible for funding.
    (c) Facilities for which other grant funding has been approved are 
not eligible for funding under this program.

Ineligible Purposes

    Grant funds shall not be used to fund ongoing operations or for 
facilities that will not be owned by the applicant, except for leased 
facilities as provided above. Costs of salaries, wages, and employee 
benefits of public television station personnel are not eligible for 
funding under this program.

Scoring Criteria for the Grant Competition

    Grants will be tested for applicant and project eligibility, and 
all applications found to be eligible will be scored. Each grant will 
be scored in three categories: the rurality of the applicant's digital 
television coverage area, the average per capita income of the 
applicant's digital television coverage area, and critical need.
    (a) Rurality is a measure of the rural character of the applicant's 
digital television coverage area. Points are scored through a two-step 
evaluation, as follows:
    (1) If the total population in the applicant's digital television 
coverage area is less than 100,000, the application receives 50 points;
    (2) If the total population in the applicant's digital television 
coverage area is 100,000 or more, points are scored based on the 
applicant's rural ratio. The rural ratio is the ratio of the rural 
population covered by a public television station's digital television 
coverage area to the total population covered by the station's digital 
television coverage area. Applicants shall calculate the rural ratio by 
subtracting the populations of all urban areas within the digital 
television coverage area from the total population of the digital 
television coverage area, and dividing the total covered population 
into the covered rural population. The result is rounded to the nearest 
whole percentage point. The score is computed as follows:
    (A) If the rural ratio is 50% or less, the application receives 
zero (0) points.
    (B) If the rural ratio is 51% to 57%, the application receives ten 
(10) points.
    (C) If the rural ratio is 58% to 65%, the application receives 
twenty (20) points.
    (D) If the rural ratio is 66% to 74%, the application receives 
thirty-five (35) points.
    (E) If the rural ratio is over 74%, the application receives fifty 
(50) points.
    (b) Per capita income (PCI) is a measure of the relative average 
earnings of the population in the applicant's digital television 
coverage area. Applicants must use the per capita personal income by 
county, as determined by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. 
Department of Commerce, at http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/regional/reis/. 
The applicant shall compute the weighted average PCI for its digital 
television coverage area by averaging the PCIs for all counties within 
its digital television coverage area. The ratio of the applicant's 
average PCI to the National Average Per Capita Income (NAPCI) is scored 
as follows:
    (1) If the PCI/NAPCI ratio is 80% or greater, the application 
receives zero (0) points.
    (2) If the PCI/NAPCI ratio is 70% to 79%, the application receives 
ten (10) points.
    (3) If the PCI/NAPCI ratio is 60% to 69%, the application receives 
twenty (20) points.
    (4) If the PCI/NAPCI ratio is less than 60%, the application 
receives thirty-five (35) points.
    (c) Critical need is a measure of the special difficulty an 
applicant may experience performing the digital transition, and the 
dependence the applicant's rural communities have on its services. This 
scoring category is intended to account for factors not covered by 
other categories. Up to fifteen (15) points may be scored where an 
applicant demonstrates, to the satisfaction of the RUS, that it cannot 
make the digital transition without a grant from RUS, and that rural 
education and other community service

[[Page 42683]]

needs will go unmet as a result. An applicant should identify special 
characteristics unique to its digital television coverage area and its 
service relationship with its viewers, such as:
    (1) Geographic or coverage characteristics of the public television 
station's digital television coverage area that make the digital 
transition unusually expensive;
    (2) A severe lack of specialized human resources (such as teachers) 
for which digital educational television will compensate;
    (3) Geographic isolation of communities which will be overcome with 
public television station services;
    (4) Non-traditional community needs (such as adult vocational 
retraining) that may be met only with digital public television station 
broadcast capabilities;
    (5) Economic conditions that place the applicant at a disadvantage 
in raising local funding, but which are not reflected to the per capita 
income levels scored above; and
    (6) Historical events that have placed the public television 
station in severe financial stress.

The Grant Application

    The grant application shall include the following:
    (a) An application for federal assistance, Standard Form 424.
    (b) An executive summary, not to exceed two pages, describing the 
public television station, its service area and offerings, its current 
digital transition status, and the proposed project.
    (c) Evidence of the applicant's eligibility to apply under this 
Notice.
    (d) A spreadsheet showing the total project cost, with a breakdown 
of items sufficient to enable RUS to determine item eligibility.
    (e) A map or maps, showing the digital television coverage area for 
all of the applicant's transmitters and translators.
    (f) The applicant's estimated rurality score, supported by a 
worksheet showing the population of its digital television coverage 
area, the derivation of the urban and rural components of that 
population, and a map showing the digital television coverage area and 
all urban areas within its boundaries. Supporting information shall 
list the sources of all population and coverage area information, and 
if the application includes computations made by a consultant or other 
organization outside the public television station, shall state the 
details of that collaboration.
    (g) The applicant's estimated per capita income ratio, supported by 
a worksheet showing the averaging of the PCIs for all counties served.
    (h) If applicable, a presentation not to exceed two pages 
demonstrating critical need.
    (i) Evidence that the Federal Communications Commission has 
authorized the initiation of digital broadcasting at each of the 
applicant's transmitter and translator sites. In the event that a 
Federal Communications Commission construction permit has not been 
issued for one or more sites, the RUS may include those sites in the 
grant, and make advance of funds for that site conditional upon the 
submission of a construction permit.
    (j) Compliance with other Federal statutes. The applicant must 
provide evidence of compliance with other Federal statutes and 
regulations, including, but not limited to the following:
    (1) Executive Order (E.O.) 11246, Equal Employment Opportunity, as 
amended by E.O. 11375 and as supplemented by regulations contained in 
41 CFR part 60;
    (2) Architectural barriers;
    (3) Flood hazard area precautions;
    (4) Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970;
    (5) Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1998 (41 U.S.C. 701);
    (6) E.O.s 12549 and 12689, Debarment and Suspension; and
    (7) Byrd Anti-Lobbying Amendment (31 U.S.C. 1352).
    (k) Environmental impact and historic preservation. The applicant 
must provide details of the digital transition's impact on the 
environment and historic preservation, and comply with 7 CFR part 1794, 
which contains RUS' policies and procedures for implementing a variety 
of federal statutes, regulations, and executive orders generally 
pertaining to the protection of the quality of the human environment. 
The application shall contain a separate section entitled 
``Environmental Impact of the Digital Transition.'' This shall include 
the Environmental Questionnaire/Certification, which is available from 
RUS, on which the applicant describes the impact of its digital 
transition. Submission of the Environmental Questionnaire/Certification 
does not constitute compliance with 7 CFR part 1794.

Grant Documents

    The terms and conditions of grants shall be set forth in grant 
documents prepared by RUS. The documents shall require the applicant to 
own all facilities financed by the grant. Among other matters, RUS may 
prescribe conditions to the advance of funds that address the 
construction of the project and the delivery of distance learning 
services to rural areas.

    Dated: July 11, 2003.
Hilda Gay Legg,
Administrator, Rural Utilities Service.
[FR Doc. 03-18192 Filed 7-17-03; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3410-15-P