FCC Defends Excluding Walker From Incentive Auction
Years-late paperwork meant Walker Broadcasting wasn't able to participate in the TV incentive auction well before Feb. 22, 2012, the Spectrum Act enactment date, the FCC said in a brief (in Pacer) Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for…
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the D.C. Circuit in opposition to Walker's appeal of the FCC's March denial of its application for review of a Media Bureau decision. Walker, in its brief (in Pacer) filed last month with the D.C. Circuit, said failure to include an interference study in its 2009 license application for WFBT Bath, New York, isn't basis for dismissal of the license or forfeiture of the construction permit "as confirmed by an examination of precedent, and as a matter of equity." Walker said "every known instance" of late filings of mobile interference studies has resulted in granting the pending license application, making FCC denial of WFBT's arbitrary and capricious. The agency also should have requested the interference study in writing before canceling the construction permit, Walker said. By not submitting that paperwork deadline on time, the permit was automatically forfeited, and Walker waited until 2015 to try to revive the permit -- and thus be eligible to take part in the auction --- by submitting overdue non-interference showing paperwork, the FCC said. The commission in its brief rejected Walker's claim that the agency had implicitly waived the automatic forfeiture rule, saying it wasn't required to dismiss Walker's pending license application in order to effectuate the automatic forfeiture. The agency said it was justified in treating Walker differently than other stations that had missed noninterference showing deadlines, since those two already were providing service to the public when their construction periods expired.