LPTV

The Media Bureau announces, sort of, the deadline for eligibility for the first post-Spectrum Auction displacement window.

After business hours last Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington denied the petition of LPTV operator Videohouse for a stay of the incentive auction, removing the last obstacle to the auction going forward next month. “Petitioner has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending court review,” the ruling says without elaboration.

The LPTV operator responds to the FCC’s filing to exclude it from the incentive auction, saying that the option Latina suggests, allowing it to participate in the auction on a provisional basis pending a final decision, is preferable to delaying the start of the auction, now scheduled for March 29

The commission turns down LPTV broadcaster Latina Broadcasters of Daytona Beach’s request to put its upcoming spectrum auction on hold while Latina’s request to take part in it is considered.

The group has completed its $23.75 million buy of W33BY-D Detroit, WMJF-CD Towson, Md. (Baltimore) and WBNF-CD Buffalo, N.Y., from LocusPoint Networks.

The FCC should not sacrifice low-power TV and translators in order to provide more unlicensed spectrum in the broadcast incentive auction. That was the message delivered in a letter Tuesday to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler from House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden and House Commerce Chairman Emeritus Joe Barton.

The FCC’s Media Bureau issued a Public Notice Friday announcing that it would immediately suspend the Sept. 1 digital transition date for LPTV and TV translator stations. The FCC’s decision, however, does not affect Class A TV stations, which are still required to complete the digital transition by Sept. 1.

A coalition of LPTV broadcasters says that buyers of LPTV stations who turn over the spectrum to the FCC for unlicensed use be granted tax credits in the same amount or twice the amount as the stations’ purchase prices. The credits could be used to reduce ordinary taxes or those of businesses that use unlicensed spectrum.

There are currently close to 6,000 LPTV and TV translator stations that serve the heart of America – with more stations in the construction process – providing local programming that cannot be found elsewhere. LPTV service has also brought more diversity to the broadcast television business. Unfortunately, the FCC’s upcoming broadcast spectrum incentive auction puts at risk low-power TV stations and could force many of them to turn off their signal forever.

Advocates of low-power TV stations and translators have been worried that their interests will be ignored in the upcoming FCC incentive auction and spectrum repack. Now, however, the Government Accountability Office is being asked to study the situation and the hope is the results will help them win rights to continue operating in the auction’s wake — similar to the rights full-power broadcasters are already guaranteed.

Late Friday, the FCC released a Public Notice stating that “[e]ffective immediately, the expiration dates and construction deadlines for all outstanding unexpired construction permits for new digital low-power television and TV translator stations are hereby suspended.” The FCC simultaneously released a Third Notice of Proposed Rulemaking  seeking comment on a number of issues related to the transition of LPTV stations to digital and their fate in the post-auction spectrum repacking.

Reps. Joe Barton and Anna Eshoo especially want to know how many LPTVs and translators — which don’t have the same protections that full-power stations have in the auctions — will be able to continue operating on replacement channels after the FCC auction’s repacking of the TV band.

The FCC has instituted yet another application filing freeze. The commission effectively said “enough is enough” and stopped accepting applications for LPTV channel displacements and new digital replacement translators.

In a May 7 letter to the FCC, the NAB, the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance, the National Religious Broadcasters and the National Translator Association “urge the commission to do everything in its power to ensure that the important benefits of LPTVs and TV translators are not undermined as a result of the incentive auction.”

Low-power WFUN-LP Miami applied for, and was granted, Class A status way back in 2000, but its failure to comply with the obligations of a Class A licensee resulted in objections from third parties and reversion to LPTV status. After a petition to reconsider filed in 2005 failed to gain traction, licensee LocalOne Texas Ltd. has tried again.

Horizon Media, the New York-based independent media shop, said today it was launching a new research effort called the “Horizon Proving Ground” in partnership with WNCE-CA, an independent low-power TV station in Saratoga Springs-Glen Falls, N.Y. And additional station partners will follow.

That the FCC seems to be moving quickly to cull LPTV stations from the Class A herd just a week after Congress cleared the way for a spectrum auction is likely no coincidence.

A low-power television station, with 10 channels of digital video and audio programming, has signed on the air in Windham, N.Y. WYBN is owned by Cable Ad Net New York, a producer of cable advertising. The 15 kw station will reach over-the-air viewers in the Albany-Troy-Schenectady market, as well as an area stretching from Saugerties to Cobleskill. It also will be a “must carry” on several small cable systems in Columbia and Greene counties.

If you have an LPTV station operating on a channel higher than 51, you have until Sept. 1 to file an application to change to digital operation on ch. 51 or below. Failure to file an application by that deadline means the station’s authority to operate will terminate on Dec. 31, which is the deadline announced last Friday by the FCC for ending all LPTV operations on chs. 52-69.

A controversy has bubbled up in connection with the FCC proceeding to set the date by which Low Power Television stations will be required to convert to digital operations. In comments filed in the proceeding to set the end date, the question of when to terminate analog broadcasting became tangled in another issue — whether ch. 6 LPTV stations should be allowed to continue to be be used to broadcast FM programming.