Many LPTV Stations May Soon Go Off The Air
Maxwell C. Agha and his wife, Michelle Diaz Agha, have pumped $15 million into their small San Diego TV station over the last two decades so they could broadcast Spanish-language news, Catholic shows and local programming. But KSDY and many other small, low-power TV stations, which often broadcast foreign-language and religious programming, soon could be silenced — knocked off the air involuntarily by the federal government with no compensation to their owners or alternatives for their often low-income viewers.
This article was originally posted on latimes.com
Good. They should have never gone on the air to begin with. YouTubet gives voice to anyone who has a microscopic audience and the need to reach it.
20+ years ago when they started the station, there was NO youtube. So maybe they should never have started their niche station? Jeez.
Yeah, open your wallet wide, Rust. Because when free TV goes, YouTube Red, Netflix, Hulu+ and the myriad of other play-for-fee channels will be right there to grab their fistful of cash from you. And in the front of the line will be the cable, satellite and wireless companies with their collective hands out as well. So enjoy your spending spree.
The companies don’t OWN their channels. I find this whole concept ridiculous. You lease space on the airwaves. Just as you lease a space on a building or office in a building. You can be asked to leave a building, you can be asked to leave your channel. Why is this any different?
Oh come now; that tired saw. You can move from one building to the next. Know any loose channels out there? You don’t just lease airwaves; you buy equipment, programming, hire staff; without all of which the airwaves are worthless. The government wants to transfer bandwidth from services that are provided to the public freely to services that charge the public by the month, solely because the by the month guys paper DC with contributions.
The station highlighted in the article spent a lot of money to be on the air. They should have applied for class A status when they could. If you’re going to invest that kind of money then you should go the whole way with Class A and all the requirements attached to it. I just can’t have sympathy for a LPTV station that spends that kind of money and didn’t opt for Class A status to protect themselves when they had the chance.
The article plainly states that they attempted to. The owners filed a timely application but because the station was operating out-of-core at the time (due to the DTV transition) the FCC rejected their application. They filed again citing the unusual circumstances of the transition and difficulties trying to coordinate an in-core channel with Mexico but were again rejected by the Commission. So the owners filed twice.
BTW, KSDY’s efforts to get Class A status are available for review in the FCC CDBS.
Just as anyone can make a bad investment, the owners of KSDY made bad investments. Cannot stop stupidity.
The Mexican government has only committed to reallocating channels above 37. So that limits how much spectrum the FCC can reclaim from the San Diego area. LPTV as a licensed service has displacement priority over unlicensed devices and San Diego is a tight market so there will be no open channels for unlicensed use (sorry, Google and Apple–looks like you’ll have to participate in the auction). There are two pending lawsuits filed by LPTV operators against the FCC and, as indicated in the article, Rep. Joe Barton (a true friend to the low power TV community) has stated that legislation might be drafted this year to help LPTV if needed. The FCC has also offered to assist LPTV stations and translators find new channels and there is the opportunity of channel sharing which would include sharing with full power stations. So KSDY may be down but it’s certainly not out and the fight to preserve this station and the thousands of others like it across the country is far from over.
So what does this mean for KNPN Fox 26 in St. Joseph, MO?
From the very beginning it was obvious that viewers would be the losers. Many LPTV stations provide a valuable service and some include local programming. I know several Fox affiliates are LPTVs. We have a mountain cabin not served by cable and satellite is blocked for many homes. Translators fill in the gaps providing television service. If these transmitters are shut down there could be no live television for some viewers. Others will still have some service but it will be more limited. This auction will reduce the selections for many. It is not good.
Lots of luck. You have no idea what is about to happen to your ATSC 1.0 quality in 18-24 months.