Deadline, Reimbursement Top Repack Issues

Major worries over time, money and loss of over-the-air TV service were the focal points of concerns voiced by GatesAir and NAB in their separately filed comments with the FCC on the Widelity study of the scope and cost of work necessary to repack TV spectrum.

The agency’s Media Bureau gave interested parties until April 21 to submit comments on the report, which was prepared by Widelity, a communications networks professional services company in Fairfax, Va. The FCC is expected to rely on the report as it prepares a Report & Order on the repack and incentive auction expected to be released at the agency’s May or June open meeting.

GatesAir (formerly Harris Broadcast) urged the FCC to “be mindful” of the challenges identified in the report of relocating so many TV broadcasters on new channel assignments and to “remain true to the FCC’s commitment to “do no harm” to the broadcast industry and, more specifically, to individual broadcasters,” in its comments.

At issue is the 39 months the FCC is considering giving broadcasters to complete the repack. GatesAir said that even under the best circumstances used by Widelity to identify how long it will take to repack a station in four different case studies, doing so within 39 months is “unattainable,” adding that “any realistic scenario” must “accounts for the challenges and backlogs that are inevitable in a transition of this magnitude.”

“It is imperative that the FCC account for the external factors that will cause substantial delays from the times estimated in the case studies…,” the GatesAir comments said. Those challenges include weather; local regulatory and zoning issues; a limited number of tower crews capable of doing the work; more stringent structural standards covering tall towers than those that existed during the DTV transition; and many other factors.

NAB echoed many of the concerns raised in the GatesAir comments and added that each step of the repack process “will raise timing and logistical issues that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to predict with certainty either the time required to complete the transition process or the costs that affected stations will reasonably incur.”

The actual spectrum repack will present stations with far less than a “best case scenario” in circumstances of their repack and the actual time needed to relocate, NAB said.

To give stations more time, the FCC “should not deem the forward auction complete until final licenses are awarded to winning bidders—which should not take place, at a minimum, until after stations subject to repacking file their applications for construction permits to change channels,” NAB said.

In its comments, GatesAir added that adhering to a “rigid process” that gives TV broadcasters only 39 months to build their post-auction facilities or go dark “almost certainly will force broadcast stations off the air.

“Forcing stations off the air despite their diligent compliance with an FCC-ordered transition makes no sense and cannot be reconciled with the commission’s overriding goal of serving the ‘public interest, convenience, and necessity,’ ” GatesAir said.

The primary thrust of NAB’s comments focused on money, specifically how the agency approaches the reimbursement of expenses incurred by stations required to change channels.

The broadcast association said the Widelity report conveyed three “overarching” messages. First, the range of related expenses is “is every bit as expansive and substantial” as NAB and other commenters previously have said.

Second, the period after the auction “will be characterized by so many variables that no catalog of potentially reimbursable expenses can possibly be comprehensive or even largely predictive.”

Third, the FCC should take steps to budget carefully for relocation such as “repacking as few stations as possible” and “optimizing repacking solutions upfront, rather than as an afterthought.”

NAB also cautioned the FCC that the costs of items identified in the report as necessary to completing the repack “appear to be optimistic, but not wholly unrealistic as a general matter.”

For example, NAB said, the Widelity report points out that there are catalog antenna designs, TV antennas are custom items. “Customized equipment, by its very nature, is not amenable to a list price or cataloging,” NAB said.

Thus, the FCC should use any catalog of repack expenses “as a source of guidance,” said NAB. It cannot “override the [Spectrum] Act’s unmistakable mandate that the commission must reimburse all ‘costs reasonably incurred by’ broadcast licensees in connection with the channel reassignment process,” it said.