Broadcasters Still Have Questions after Initial Reading of Spectrum Auction NPRM
The FCC’s notice of proposed rulemaking on the incentive spectrum auction has raised even more questions among broadcasters, some of whom worry their concerns may be getting less attention at the agency than those of the wireless industry, broadcast industry officials said. Though attorneys and executives we spoke to this week said they were still parsing the item, the release of the NRPM has done little to quell broadcaster questions about how the reverse auction and repacking of the TV band will proceed. “We have more question than we had before,” said Mark Aitken, who is on the board of the Advanced TV Broadcasting Alliance and is vice president of advanced technology for Sinclair.
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"The general tone of the document is that they certainly put a lot of time and effort into this,” Aitkin said. “But they have spent a surprising amount of time and effort laying out a wireless industry perspective on the use of spectrum without an understanding of how much spectrum is going to be gathered,” he said. It’s going to be important for broadcasters to make the case that the auction is a broadcast issue “first and foremost,” an industry executive said. “It’s our spectrum that’s going to be recaptured, our stations that are going to be moved around,” the executive said.
NAB has committed to working with the commission toward a successful auction (CD Oct 1 p1). “Part of the conversation going forward is that the theme here is that broadcasting and broadband are all different pieces that fit together and are not different silos at all,” said Jane Mago, NAB executive vice president-general counsel. “We shouldn’t be looking at it as if they are siloed."
The NPRM, though lengthy, still leaves many questions about the reverse auction and repacking of the TV band unanswered and seems to lack specifics, a broadcast industry attorney said. That includes exactly how the commission will deal with stations along the Canadian and Mexican borders, the attorney said. “I'm just not sure how that dynamic will work and furthermore, I have this concern that it will play out in a way that some of the issues will get surfaced riskily late in the game.” In general, “I think the procedure and the process are going to be very challenging, because until they are resolved with some specificity, it will all sound pretty hypothetical,” the attorney said.
Sorting out the border interference issues will be a challenge, Mago said. “It’s not necessarily a stopper on all of this but it does take additional coordination and effort,” she said. “I'm not sure it’s easy to take care of but it’s not insurmountable.” Another issue NAB will be raising is how to protect viewers who rely on LPTV or translators for TV service, she said. In some, particularly western markets, as much as 35 percent of households are covered by signals from translators, Aitken said.
"We understand you're talking about serving people and you're not just talking about spectrum,” Mago said. The NPRM said that LPTV and translator stations will not be eligible to participate in the auction and would not be protected in the repacking process. “This is the kind of thing we're going to try to work with the folks at the commission on to show there are different policy choices they can make that will have different impacts on low power and translators,” Mago said.