• by October 12, 2001

As television makes the switch to digital broadcasting, public TV stations can run commercials for the first time.

The Federal Communications Commission in a 3-1 vote, ruled Thursday that the stations can display advertisements on some of the new data or subscription services - more likely to be viewed on personal computers and special TV attachments than on the family set.

Digital is a new, more efficient technology that allows broadcasters to transmit much more programming over the same channel than is possible with traditional analog technology.

John Lawson, president of the Association of America's Public Television Stations, said examples of how some stations plan to use their extra digital capacity include fee-based services such as college courses aired in rural areas, subscriptions to televised lectures, and even textbooks.

The nation's 354 public television stations now are funded solely through private donations and government subsidies.

The commission retained the current advertising ban on public TV's free over-the-air programming. That means no commercial interruption of PBS classics such as "Antiques Roadshow," "Masterpiece Theatre," and "NOVA" beyond the corporate sponsorship messages that now are aired.

The FCC also ruled that an undefined "substantial majority" of a station's entire weekly digital capacity must remain noncommercial.

In allowing ads on some of public TV's new digital services, the commission said public broadcasters will now be subject to a 5 percent tax on revenue from those new channels.

Lawson said public broadcasters need a new revenue source to help make the required switch to digital TV.

Much of the new programming, and thus any advertisements now allowed to come along with it, is most likely to come online or on TV set-top boxes - not via a TV set, he said.

Congress determined that broadcasters must broadcast only digital TV by the end of 2006 and return their analog channels to the government for other uses.

Though few people own still-pricey digital TVs, relatively inexpensive converters can be used to view digital programming on regular sets. About 40 public TV stations now broadcast in digital.

Public-interest groups see the FCC ruling as a threat to the mission of public TV to provide a noncommercial broadcast alternative.

"The sale of advertising puts on the block one of the very things that makes public television special and different from commercial broadcasting," said commissioner Michael Copps, the lone dissenter.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell disagreed.

"The soul of public broadcasting is in no way compromised," he said. "I don't think it is a path to commercialization, but an extension of one that already exists." - The Associated Press