While all the trade press and news outlets covered the main story of the Senate Commerce Committee DTV transition from July 12th , the view from the ground was very interesting. I got to the senate hearing room in the Russell Senate Office Building early but not early enough. Fifty people were sitting and sleeping on the hallway floor and lined up down a stairwell. What I first thought was a group of protesters for converter boxes was actually various professional line sitting company employees; temps who hold the spaces for the powerful lobbyists. I asked the folks in the first spaces who they were holding the spaces for and they said the National Association of Broadcasters.

The suits had all the good seats in the small hearing room.

Senator John McCain was again impressive for his ongoing support for first responders. He vehemently went after the broadcasters for their delays in returning the needed spectrum so that it would be available for first responders. Even their agreeing to a hard transition date did not slow him down in his harsh criticism for their previous delaying actions.

It was as if he expected them to find other ways of delaying the process even though they finally had issued some supportive words for the hard date. I can't blame Senator McCain at all. A December 31, 2008 transition date is three and a half years away and that is a long time and anything can happen including domestic terror attacks as a number of senators pointed out. And in the meantime, first responders will still be without added spectrum.

A few senators did acknowledge that the funds that spectrum auctions could generate may have an effect on advancing the transition date. But don't hold your breathe.

It just seemed to me that if first responders want the spectrum we should have had a large presence at this specific hearing. I know great testimony was offered by the one first responder representative on the panel. I know legislators will be contacted by the appropriate folks. However, a strong presence could not have hurt our efforts. The good press would have underscored our position and maybe just maybe had an impact on moving the date forward.