Commissioners Dismiss LPTV Application for Review
Commissioners dismissed an application for review filed by a low-power TV station challenging the Media Bureau’s dismissal of its displacement application, said an FCC order released Friday. WOCK-CD Chicago argued that its channel’s poor signal quality was the result of…
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interference from WHBF-TV Rock Island, Illinois, but failed to provide sufficient evidence for that claim and earlier had filed a displacement application that didn’t blame WHBF, the order said. WOCK is on low-VHF spectrum, which often has reception problems, the order said. “The Commission has long recognized the reception difficulties for digital TV broadcasting in the low VHF band.” After the bureau rejected WOCK’s application, the station filed the application for review, also warning in a separate filing that it couldn't auction off the UHF channel WOCK sought to move to in the broadcast incentive auction without deciding on WOCK’s filing. WOCK’s displacement application was rightfully rejected because it didn’t satisfy the proper criteria for displacement, and its claim on the prospective channel was filed untimely and not part of the broadcaster’s original filing, the full commission ruled. In any case, “no station has a ‘right’ to a specific channel such that the Commission is precluded from reassigning or reallocating that channel in connection with the incentive auction,” the order said.