Gordon Smith

Association chiefs from broadcasting, cable and consumer electronics will be featured in a “Tune In to the Future” panel on May 14 at the 2015 ATSC Broadcast TV Conference in Washington.

At its annual gala in New York, the Broadcasters Foundation of America presented Gordon Smith, NAB president-CEO, with this year’s Golden Mike Award and honored the late Dick Clark with the group’s first Lifetime Achievement Award.  Above, l-r: BFA President Jim Thompson, BFA Chairman Phil Lombardo, NAB CEO Gordon Smith and CBS’s Major Garrett, host for the evening.

The Broadcasters Foundation of American has NAB President Gordon Smith and the trade group he heads to be honored at its black-tie fundraising gala in New York on March 16. “Gordon’s accomplishments for broadcasters are widely recognized,” says BFA Chairman Phil Lombardo. “But perhaps many are not aware of Gordon’s tireless efforts” on behalf of the BFA.

The Broadcasters Foundation of American has selected the former U.S. senator and the trade group he now heads to be honored at its black-tie fundraising gala in New York on Feb. 23. “Gordon’s accomplishments for broadcasters are widely recognize, says BFA Chairman Phil Lombardo. “But perhaps many are not aware of Gordon’s tireless efforts” on behalf of the BFA.

NAB President Gordon Smith agreed to continue leading the trade group through the end of 2018. Terms were not disclosed. Under his current deal, he is being paid around $1.8 million annually.

NAB chief Gordon Smith tells engineers at the ATSC’s annual conference that a new broadcast TV standard is needed so the industry can “move quickly to increase the number of distribution channels and platforms for our valuable local content, and we must respond to the needs of an ever-more mobile audience.” He also blasts the FCC for being “myopically focused on broadband and delivering our spectrum to wireless companies.”

I suspect the answer is the Television Operators Caucus. Whatever the reason, not to have Smith on the NAB board is absurd. Sinclair is the sixth largest TV station group ranked by revenue with more stations in more markets than any other. Aside from Sinclair’s sheer size, Smith deserves a place within NAB because of his ideas. He is a real industry leader.

I suspect the answer is the Television Operators Caucus. Whatever the reason, not to have Smith on the NAB board is absurd. Sinclair is the sixth largest TV station group ranked by revenue with more stations in more markets than any other. Aside from Sinclair’s sheer size, Smith deserves a place within NAB because of his ideas. He is a real industry leader.

Broadcasters should move beyond rhetoric and craft a real National Broadcast Plan, a petition to Congress and FCC laying out what they feel they need to remain competitive with broadband and other TV media and continue to fill their unique role in the mediascape. Here are 10 ideas the NAB — and all TV broadcasters — can use to get started.

Broadcasters are having a tough time in Washington. A number of efforts are aimed straight at the business, from the FCC’s recent decision to tighten ownership rules and take back big chunks of TV spectrum for wireless, to a very vocal pay TV lobby pushing hard on Congress to reform retransmission consent. Wrapping up the industry’s national convention in Las Vegas this week, Gordon Smith, NAB president and CEO, remains confident he can generate some big wins for broadcasters in the nation’s capital.

FCC CEO Gordon Smith says such a plan is needed to balance the federal government’s “increasingly singular focus” on broadband. The FCC should take a “holistic” approach, starting with a thorough review of all regulations. “Where is the FCC’s gusto and determination to embrace broadcasting’s values and public service responsibilities?” he asks.

The trade group’s two losses at the commission this week — on JSAs and joint retrans negotiations — are troubling to broadcasters because they believe FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has it in for them and other important issues are in the regulatory pipeline. But the news out of the nation’s capital is not all bad for NAB. The association is holding its own on Capitol Hill, where power is more diffused and NAB President (and former GOP Senator) Gordon Smith has some personal clout.

NAB President Gordon Smith tells FCC Chairman Wheeler that his proposed crackdown on JSAs has already financially damaged the industry and could eventually cost jobs. “It’s time to take a step back and reevaluate,” says Smith in a letter to the chairman.

In prepared remarks, Gordon Smith rebuked the “myopic” Genachowski FCC for doing whatever it could for wireless broadband, while ignoring broadcasting, despite all the public good that it does. He also urged the FCC under new chairman Tom Wheeler to take “its responsibility seriously to drive innovation and investment in the U.S. broadcast industry, just as it does with the broadband industry.”

NAB has been telling me for a while what a winner its annual Small Market Television Exchange is, and after attending for the first time last week, I would have to agree. An energetic and engaged group of broadcast sales folk came together not to lament the good old days or wring their hands about disruptive technology, but simply to find a few ideas that they can put to work starting this morning to meet their sales goals. You wonder why there isn’t something like it for stations in markets 1-74.

At a Senate Communications Subcommittee hearing, the NAB CEO says he understands Fox’s suggestion that it might move its programming to cable if the streaming service doesn’t pay it for its programming. “Fox produces enormously valuable content that gets huge viewership, and they have to figure out how to pay for it.” He also took exception to a suggestion by Sen. Mark Warner that broadcasters had not paid for their spectrum, pointing out the importance of public service efforts, including providing local news, weather and sports information — and providing coverage of emergencies “that is literally a lifeline.”

Noting that 25 more stations have said they will soon be offering a mobile DTV service, Smith told the crowd at today’s NAB Show opening session that broadcasters have an advantage in the mobile marketplace. “Our one-to-many architecture allows us to deliver a product where there is no streaming necessary, so there’s no signal congestion.” And he urged broadcasters to “rise up to meet consumers’ desire for more live, local TV content.”

Gordon Smith, NAB president and former Republican U.S. senator from Oregon, says that although he may get the “call” to public service again, he’s now too busy — and happy — working in the private sector and living in the nonstop beehive of Washington, D.C., to think about running for anything.

The NAB CEO tells FCC Chairman Genachowski that “the commission need not choose between quality wireless broadband and a robust local broadcast system” and urges him to engage TV broadcasters as partners in finding a solution.

NAB President Gordon Smith: “Lawmakers have good reason to want a healthy broadcast industry. Broadcast TV stations provide more than 186,000 jobs on an annual basis, which directly generate more than $30 billion in economic activity. The ripple effect of TV broadcasting on the economy is even greater, with 1.5 million jobs and $716 billion in annual economic activity attributed to the local television business.”

In a letter sent Wednesday to Reps. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) and Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the co-chairmen of the Federal Spectrum Working Group, NAB CEO Gordon Smith urged lawmakers to investigate spectrum hoarding and warehousing by different players in the wireless industry, saying it is “vitally important to have a clear understanding of how the private sector is using spectrum.”

CEA President Gary Shapiro says NAB CEO Gordon Smith should refrain from his public statements about the FCC’s proposed spectrum auction, calling them “inconsistent with the goals of Congress.”

A new contract extension for Gordon Smith will keep the association’s president-CEO on board through 2016. The new deal is likely richer than the current one under which he earned $1.4 million last year.

Former Republican Sen. Gordon Smith (Ore.), now the head of the National Association of Broadcasters, on Monday urged the Senate to promptly confirm President Obama’s two nominees to the FCC.

Members of Congress’ deficit reducing Super Committee tell Obama that he needs to find more government spectrum that can be auction to wireless broadband operators. The spectrum that Obama has already identified, including portions of the TV band, is not enough, they say.

Groups backing efforts to give the FCC authority to auction TV spectrum to wireless broadband operators lashed out at the NAB for suggesting in a letter to Congress’ deficit-reduction Super Commitee that there is no spectrum shortage and so no need to auction TV spectrum.

In an open letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, NAB President Gordon Smith says “the mere prospect of government intervention introduces uncertainty and distorts incentives in ways that disrupt the bargaining process and only make it more difficult to reach fair and equitable agreements.” He says service disruptions caused by negotiation impasses are the rare exception rather than the rule.

NAB President Gordon Smith says the  FCC’s TV spectrum grab could be “catastrophic” for the industry and could mean the loss of free, local programming for tens of millions of viewers. “We’re just like a pinata that everyone’s always banging, and we’re saying, ‘Enough already.’ “

The FCC’s desire to auction TV spectrum to aid wireless broadband and generate revenue is now centered on a House-Senate effort to reduce the country’s budget deficit. Broadcasters, led by NAB, are concerned that the Super Committee version of the incentive auction will lack sufficient protections for those TV stations that choose not to participate in an auction. So, NAB and other broadcast lobbyists will be working hard over the next two months to make sure that whatever incentive auction provision emerges addresses the industry’s concerns.

NAB President Gordon Smith gave his blessing to the House incentive auction bill, but said he’d prefer stronger language that would require the FCC to preserve stations’ current coverage to “the maximum extent possible.” Smith would also like the final bill include a requirement that the FCC use the same signal protection criteria that it did when it shifted broadcasters to digital service two years ago.

As the debate rages in Washington over auctioning free and local broadcast television airwaves for fee-based wireless broadband applications, one of the questions being pondered is, “What’s the highest and best use of this valuable resource?” The answer is: “It depends whom you ask.”

NAB President and former U.S. senator from Oregon Gordon Smith yesterday released  a statement saying former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney “has a proven job creation record as governor and in the private sector.”

The NAB president says he welcomes the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s work on creating the next generation of TV technical standards, but emphasizes that for the new over-the-air TV innovations to work, stations must not be forced to give back spectrum.

The NAB president says that an FCC spectrum auction must be totally voluntary, and even at that there need to be assurances that it “doesn’t harm another station that wants to stay in business and is excited about the future.”

Hopefully, the broadcast networks and their affiliates will use their various meetings at the NAB Show next week to reach some understanding on the contentious issue of retrans sharing. But if the networks and affiliates can’t get their act together soon, they should hire a “statesman” whom everyone respects to mediate, to remind both sides of their mutual interests and get them working together against cable and satellite and not against each other. But who? Who is this statesman or stateswoman who could save broadcasting from itself? I nominate NAB President Gordon Smith.

It’s an uphill fight for broadcasters trying to stall or mitigate the FCC’s plan to reclaim a large hunk of broadcast spectrum and repurpose it for wireless broadband. The plan enjoys the backing of some of the biggest names in wireless, consumer electronics and the high-tech world, not to mention the White House and fiscal conservatives on the Hill.

The charge against the cable and satellite operators comes in a letter to key members of Congress. The NAB president also calls for a government investigation into “spectrum hoarding and/or spectrum speculation.”

The charged that the cable and satellite operators are warehousing and speculating in spectrum comes in a letter to key members of Congress. Smith says the government needs to investigate “spectrum hoarding and/or spectrum speculation.”

The trade association has a head hunter searching for an EVP of technology who will be its “principal technologist and technology policy strategist,” reporting directly to President Gordon Smith.

Veteran politician,businessman and now the top evangelist for broadcasters, Gordon Smith, the president of the National Association of Broadcasters, is telling his former Capitol Hill colleagues that the federal government’s plan to bolster wireless networks could end up darkening signals for hundreds of stations around the country.