There’s been plenty of news from the wacky, wonderful world of digital TV over the past couple of weeks. Here are a few of the more interesting stories.

News Item: NBC pulls the plug on Weather Plus
NBC’s Weather Plus 24/7 digital TV service will be phased out by the end of 2008, according to TVWeek.com. NBC News President Steve Capus broke the bad news to staff members earlier this month at CNBC’s studios in Englewood, NJ.

Apparently, the NBC affiliates board decided that having a full-time weather barker channel focused on local market conditions just wasn’t going to fly. Ten NBC owned-and-operated (O&O) stations and 80 affiliates were carrying Weather Plus on a 2nd or 3rd minor channel in their terrestrial broadcast mux, but only the O&Os showed any interest in the Web simulcast.

The small number of affiliates dashed any hopes for national advertising sales. Oddly enough, Weather Plus was very popular in my market (Philadelphia) with Comcast promoting the service in-house from WCAU-DT and carrying it on cable channel 232. This leaves only ABC O&Os with a 24/7 weather barker, plus a handful of local stations.

News item: FCC mulls must-carry rules for low-power DTV stations
At this Wednesday’s FCC public meeting, the Commission will vote on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would require cable TV systems to carry local low-power stations, just as they would local full-power stations.

Low-power and translator TV stations are exempt from the digital TV transition coming next February, primarily due to the costs of converting over from analog broadcasts. The low-power station issue has been a "sticky wicket" for the FCC, who asked manufacturers of DTV converter boxes to include analog pass-through on the second generation of models introduced this year.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s motivation is to "…boost the diversity of voices," according to the Broadcasting and Cable article. Of the 500 Class A LPTV stations currently broadcasting, the FCC estimated about 236 were Spanish-language stations. Not surprisingly, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association is opposed to this proposal.

News item: There’s a shortage of digital portable TVs!
According to a USA Today article, about seven million battery-powered portable TVs will become boat anchors after 2/17/09 unless they are connected to a digital TV converter box. The catch? Only one DTV converter model has any capability to operate from batteries, a big problem in case of an emergency.

Hurricane Katrina and other recent natural disasters have emergency response officials urging people to put together emergency survival kits, a key component of which would be a radio or portable TV. Although more people monitor radios in an emergency (according to the Red Cross), local news is fast disappearing from radio.

That would leave ancillary DTV services like AccuWeather and Weather Plus (no wait, skip that last one) to carry the load. Given the decentralized nature of terrestrial broadcasting, it’s likely that one or more local DTV stations could stay on the air even in the event of a massive power outage that would knock cable and satellite services off the air.

You can get a portable digital TV, but it’ll cost you. Radio Shack offers the Accurian 7 portable ATSC/NTSC (7-inch screen, $199.99, model 16-454) with LCD screen, but there aren’t many other choices other than a laptop equipped with a USB "stick" tuner. As for the one NTIA converter with battery capability, it’s the Winegard RCDT09A, and the battery backup (RC-BP9V) is sold as an optional accessory.

To add more confusion to the mix, standards for mobile digital TV receivers are still being approved. We may see some early models of these products at CES 2009, the article stated, but mass production won’t ramp up until about a year from now. (Oh well, better late than never, I always say…)