Is FCC Going Too Fast On Spectrum Auction?

Broadcasters are urging the FCC to slow down plans to hold the much-debated spectrum auction as early as next year, saying “spectrum is going to last a long time … so we need to get it right.”

“There are so many unanswered questions,” says the National Association of Broadcaster’s Rick Kaplan. “There are too many things that are too important.”

That the transfer of spectrum from broadcasters to wireless companies, which is the goal of the auction, would result in interference for is among the primary concerns, Kaplan says.

Kaplan was one of a panel of broadcasters — as well as an FCC senior adviser — who debated the merits of the spectrum auction at the SNL Kagan TV and Radio Finance Summit held Thursday in New York.

Although the four-person panel discussed the nitty-gritty of the plan, much of the discussion boiled down to whether the plan includes adequate safeguards for broadcasters and consumers.

Sinclair’s Mark Aitken made extremely clear his opinion that the answer to that is no. He said that by pushing to hold the auction in 2014, versus delaying until the many issues associated it with it are resolved, the FCC is putting at risk both the quality and accessibility of over-the-air TV.

“The consumer gets shorted on this deal, and the fact is we think the commission ought to take some time and figure out what’s good for the American public,” Aitken said.

Although it’s up to broadcasters whether or not they want to sell their spectrum to the FCC — which in turn will sell it to wireless companies — they ultimately will pay the price when the commission then moves onto repacking, or reassigning channels that remain on the air, he says.

Repacking raises the risk that TV viewers will experience interference. A small number of viewers could even lose access to a station altogether. Aitken says it makes sense to do that repack years down the road, when new transmission standards will make it more successful.

But Rebecca Hanson, an FCC senior adviser, says the commission is acting methodically in devising plans to executing the auction, the timing of which is being driven by “the need for spectrum in the marketplace as we understand it. That said, we aren’t recklessly going to go head on into something we’ve never done before,” she said.

Rather, she added, the auction plan has components that mitigate problems like interference that could result from the repacking. “An inferior broadcast project is not one of the commission’s stated goals of the auction and never will be,” she said.