spectrum auction

Paul Broyles, president of the International Broadcasting Network, says the pending spectrum auction and subsequent channel repack will lead to the demise of the entire television broadcasting industry. These are his reasons why.

Bill Lake, the FCC’s Media Bureau Chief, told the standards group that ATSC 3.0 — the next-generation and non-backwards compatible television standard — can’t be completed and deployed without holding up the spectrum auction and channel repack.

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.”

Washington communications attorney John Hane walks us through how the just-authorized broadcast TV spectrum auction may play out. He explains what the FCC has to do, how it may proceed, the vagaries of the whole process and points out what broadcasters should be wary of.

That’s the value and power of over-the-air television broadcasting. The Fox plan to invest millions of dollars into the launch of MundoFox, a new broadcasting network for Hispanics, makes hash out of the FCC chairman’s contention that broadcasting is an obsolete medium and that its continued use of spectrum is of a waste or at least the underutilization of a precious natural resource.

A Republican-backed payroll tax and jobs bill with TV spectrum auction language attached won House passage last night. But many hurdles still stand in the way of it becoming law. President Obama has said he would veto the legislation as it now stands. Still, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, who has championed the reallocation of TV spectrum to wireless broadband, called the House vote a “major achievement.”

The two groups are joined by three others in a letter to the congressional Super Committee charged with reducing the federal deficit, asking it to reject a provision in the jobs bill that would empower the FCC to impose more than $4 billion in new spectrum user fees over 10 years.

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.

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.’ “

A study by Jason Bazinet and Michael Rollins of Citi Investment Research & Analysis seems to undermine FCC’s claim that reallocating spectrum from broadcast TV is urgent. The study concludes that only about 35.7% of spectrum set aside for wireless communications is being used for that purpose. What’s causing the spectrum problems, Bazinet and Rollins believe, is not how much spectrum is being consumed but where it falls on the map, and who owns it.

The fight between the NAB and the FCC over spectrum auctions is ugly. The two groups should be working together for the common good — that is, enhancing broadcasting as a strong, free and universal service and, at the same time, freeing up some additional spectrum for wireless broadband. Let me offer a compromise, a new National Broadband/Broadcast Plan. The NAB and the FCC would persuade as many stations as possible to give up their channels with the promise of a big pay day. And then the FCC would use a portion of the freed up spectrum — let’s say about a third — to improve broadcasting by giving the remaining stations more room to breathe.

This is getting ridiculous. The FCC was supposed to make public its technical models for its proposed spectrum reallocation that would make its proposed auction plan possible. Broadcasters are still waiting. It keeps promising, but it never delivers and that’s straining the commission’s credibility. Until the modeling is made public, broadcasters should remain skeptical — and wary — of the anything having to do with incentive auctions. And Congress, too.

The FCC has been pushing for a while to get some 120 MHz of spectrum from the TV broadcasters and it sell it to the highest bidder. The NAB is opposing these plans and warning that it could lead to the closure of some 210 of its member’s stations. But the impact could be even greater on the country’s low-power TV stations, some LPTV operators fear. Close to 3,500 LPTVs would be affected by the spectrum changes, according to NAB estimates.

The congressional agreement to raise the debt ceiling did not contain language proposed by Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that would have  granted the FCC authority to hod incentive auctions of broadcast TV spectrum with limited protections for stations operators that choose not to participate. But, industry-watchers caution, auctions are not dead yet.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s current debt ceiling plan would direct the FCC to auction off highly valuable television spectrum to wireless carriers desperate for more airwaves.

Sen. Harry Reid’s debt reduction proposal would permit the FCC to conduct incentive auctions of TV spectrum and share the proceeds with broadcasters who give up spectrum, but doesn’t have safeguards that broadcasters want. NAB is lobbying against the plan, calling it “about as big a threat as there is in terms of the future of our business.”

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.

The Senate bill authorizing FCC TV spectrum auctions is raising red flags after an amendment was added that makes it unclear that such auctions be entirely voluntary for broadcasters. Another is that the FCC is not required to protect sufficiently those broadcasters that choose to hang on to their spectrum from increased interference and loss of service area.

It’s looking increasingly likely that Congress may authorize the FCC to hold incentive auctions as soon as this summer as part of debt-ceiling legislation now in the works. NAB says it is “working hard to ensure that spectrum-related provisions would include replication and interference protections for the vast majority of TV stations that will choose to remain in business.”

Italy, trying to cut its deficit, may be thwarted in a bid to raise €2.4 billion ($3.5 billion) by auctioning frequencies, as broadcasters and phone companies resist the “chaotic” sale. Local television channels, which occupy most of the frequencies to be sold, say they may refuse to free the spectrum if the government doesn’t offer higher compensation. Mobile phone operators, the likely buyers, say the frequencies aren’t worth the price if the broadcasters don’t allow immediate access.

The Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act authorizes broadcasters and other spectrum licensees to voluntarily return unused portions of the airwaves. The freed-up spectrum would be re-auctioned for commercial wireless broadband use in exchange for a portion of the proceeds through “incentive auctions.” The bill now heads to Senate floor.

Veteran Broadcaster Bert Ellis says the FCC should make putting TV tuner chips in handsets the price of entry for wireless companies in an incentive spectrum auction, and for approval of the combo of major wireless players AT&T and T-Mobile. Ellis, currently president of Titan Broadcasting, says he may well sell some of the spectrum from some of his stations under the right conditions.

It has been to goal of Congress to establish a national emergency interoperable communications system for first responders, ever since the events of 9/11 exposed the weaknesses in the system. A new bill will address that issue, and provide for the voluntary auction of spectrum by willing TV stations. NAB was conditionally pleased with the bill.

I’m of the opinion that there isn’t that big a divide between the FCC and NAB’s positions. And I think all the posturing and threats will end as soon as Genachowski and the NAB can agree on how much stations owners should receive for giving up their claim on what used to be thought of as the public’s property.

The FCC chairman’s speech to advance his plan to move TV spectrum to wireless broadband fell on mostly deaf ears. Genachowski recognized broadcasters’ concerns, but really didn’t address them. What he did make clear is that he views wireless broadband as the big game and that it is his job to feed it with as much spectrum as he can find. In his mind, broadcasting is nice; broadband is “essential.”

CEA and CTIA are composing letters, commissioning surveys and writing white papers. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is giving speeches at NAB 2011 in Las Vegas. And various individuals are testifying on Capitol Hill. They all have the same objective — the capture of 120 MHz worth of television spectrum to repurpose for wireless broadband. On the Hill, WGAL Lancaster, Pa., Chief Engineer Bob Good mounted a defense.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski met with most of a hundred state broadcasters out in Las Vegas this week to talk about the FCC’s spectrum auction plan, according to an FCC official familiar with the meeting. The chairman was there to address the NAB Show on that very topic.

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.”

The FCC chairman tries to reassure broadcasters that any incentive auction plan of TV spectrum would be voluntary, saying it’s “essential that broadcasters be treated fairly.” He reinforces his claim that such action is needed to meet a growing need for wireless broadband services, saying, “If we wait until there’s a crisis to reallocate spectrum, we’ll have waited too long — for consumers, for our global competitiveness — and, I believe, for broadcasters.”

Just as the NAB opened its annual convention in Las Vegas on Monday, the Consumer Electronics Association released a survey purportedly demonstrating that Americans want spectrum devoted to wireless Internet and not television. The timing of the release of the CEA-commissioned survey was no accident; it was meant to rile broadcasters as they fight to hold on to spectrum.

As part of an NAB Show panel on the FCC’s spectrum plans, Post-Newsweek President Alan Frank says the proposal to auction spectrum to aid broadband  is not so much how such a voluntary auction will affect the minority of broadcasters who choose to participate in it, but rather how it will affect the majority who choose not to. And then there’s that word “voluntary.” “I had the honor of serving in the Army and I understand voluntary,” Frank said. Responding was FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, who promised that it was not the FCC’s intention to degrade TV service in any way.

The Obama Administration’s campaign to reassign broadcast spectrum for wireless broadband is now focused on securing congressional authorization for incentive auctions. The White House today hosted an summit on the issue, inviting a bevy of economists, FCC Chief Julius Genachowski and no broadcasters.

Proving yet again that where there’s a will, there’s a way, the FCC has announced that it is proceeding with incentive auctions “promptly”. This is noteworthy, of course, because Congress still hasn’t gotten around to authorizing the sharing of auction proceeds — and the conventional wisdom has been that, without such authority, incentive auctions were a non-starter.

The FCC plan to reclaim a big block of broadcast spectrum is the most critical issue facing broadcasters in the past three decades. So it’s perplexing that they chose this time to shut down MSTV, their longtime spectrum policy lobby, and to diss NAB’s top tech exec. Those moves raise the stakes in NAB’s hiring of a new EVP of technology. The right person keeps broadcasting in the game. The wrong person puts it on the same grim road as newspapers.

The NAB president says broadcasters are willing to volunteer spectrum, but won’t be put in a degraded position on the TV band.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee, and Rep. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced a bill that would authorize incentive auctions and require the FCC and NTIA to conduct a spectrum inventory. It would allow the FCC to determine how much to compensate broadcasters for giving up spectrum, but would also try to prevent speculation in those licenses.

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.”

Buried in President Obama’s 2012 budget is an item that could alter the way people look at the term “voluntary,” at least when it comes to the proposed spectrum auctions for broadcast spectrum. “To promote efficient use of the electromagnetic spectrum, the administration proposes to provide the FCC with new authority to use other economic mechanisms, such as fees, as a spectrum management tool,” the budget says. “FCC would be authorized to set user fees on unauctioned spectrum licenses and could be used in instances where incentive auctions are not appropriate.”