In a petition to the FCC, the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition is asking the agency to reconsider the channel sharing plans it laid out in its Incentive Auction Report & Order. The Coalition says the rules limit broadcasters' flexibility and could cause them to reconsider the channel sharing option.
Coalition To FCC: Rethink Channel Share Plan
The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition on Friday submitted a petition to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to reconsider its channel sharing-related rules for the spectrum auction.
The Coalition says the rules, adopted in the FCC’s Incentive Auction Report & Order, do not provide “the necessary flexibility to broadcasters who might be interested in pursuing this option.”
The channel sharing scheme laid out by the FCC requires broadcasters to relinquish one or more 6 MHz channels to share a single 6 MHz channel.
“The channel sharing rules and procedures that the FCC adopted … if left unchanged, will have the unintended consequence of causing broadcasters to rethink the channel sharing option rather than achieving the Commission’s goal of promoting channel sharing as a way to increase the amount of broadcast spectrum relinquished in the reverse auction,” the Coalition states in its petition.
The group laid out four aspects of the plan that it says will prevent channel sharing from reaching its potential as a viable alternative for broadcasters.
First, the Incentive Auction R&O prohibits common contractual rights, such as puts, calls, options and rights of first refusal that are usual components of agreements between parties integrating their operations, according to the Coalition.
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The plan also limits channel sharing arrangements to those negotiated before the auction. That would force broadcasters to “enter into complicated agreements before they know critical details about the auction,” the Coalition says.
The group adds that those arrangements would be formally entered into the FCC’s Television Table of Allotments, requiring a “host” station to give up a portion of its spectrum.
Last, the Incentive Auction R&O would allow the FCC in certain cases to select a station’s channel sharing partner and force the other station to accept that partner, the Coalition says.
Preston Padden, executive director of the Coalition, tells TVNewsCheck that the group met with the FCC to discuss the problems and was invited to file the position to establish a record basis to review the rules.
“This filing is not a complaint,” Padden says, “but rather a continuation of productive dialogue.”
Comments (5)
Ellen Samrock says:
September 12, 2014 at 4:47 pm
Channel sharing is a can of worms and selling spectrum means shrinking opportunities for broadcasters…not expanding them.
Don Thompson says:
September 14, 2014 at 8:08 pm
The results are in: Two TV stations can easily share one 6 MHz channel and reduced the overallocation of incredibly valuable spectrum to “free TV.” That TV stations are not sharing spectrum that they use for free when 96% of their viewers have a pay-TV service and broadband access on smartphones is pathetic should tell anyone that NAB lobbying is trumping common sense…………… Please follow me on Twitter @TedatACA
Julien Devereux says:
September 15, 2014 at 3:27 pm
I get my TV over the air, and the digital sideband stations don’t seem to be as clear as the main signal; I can’t say if that’s because the source material is grainy or poorly filmed, or if it is because that it’s on a sideband signal. If it’s the latter, I am all against channel sharing because whoever takes the sideband signal, is going to have an inferior over the air signal. I don’t know how much that will matter to the local station, though, as they operate as though cable or satellite viewers are the only ones out there and the OTA views are a distant second thought.
Robert Vincent says:
September 16, 2014 at 9:50 am
Its more of a smaller piece of the pie of the entire 6Mhz allotment. It is a bandwidth management deal. You want to give your HD channel as much as you can while still allowing the subs to operate without looking like a phone video. They play with these numbers all the time. My former employer now has 4 subs and they still try to do HD on the main (ION Networks). There are times the DTP just cannot handle it and one or more of the subs drops into lockup.
Robert Vincent says:
September 16, 2014 at 9:52 am
We already have three dualopolies in the metro area so it means the most fierce competitors would have to share. I’m thinking of it like 1 big ice cream cone and four snot nosed 3rd graders looking at it from across the playground.