The FCC plans to reveal which broadcasters sold stations in the incentive auction and how much they got paid, but not until the forward auction and a subsequent assignment auction close, auction watchers say. That will take at least six weeks from today.
Spectrum Sellers Won’t Be Known Until March
When the FCC announced last week that bidding by wireless carriers in the forward auction was sufficient to meet its obligations to pay the broadcasters who sold stations in the reverse auction and cover repacking and administrative costs, it essentially closed the reverse auction. So, the winning broadcasters now know who they are and what they will be paid for their stations.
But under the FCC-imposed “quiet period” aimed at preventing collusion among broadcasters during the entire auction process, the winning broadcasters can’t tell anybody.
What’s more, adhering to its strict procedures, the FCC is not likely to announce the winners and how much they will be paid for their stations until March, according to auction watchers inside and outside the FCC.
The public notice with the winners will also include how many stations and which stations will have to migrate to new channels in the repacking of the TV band.
Why the delay?
Before that tell-all public notice goes out, a couple of things have to happen.
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First, the FCC has to close the forward auction and it will not do that until demand for spectrum is exhausted in every market and no more bids are coming in. That will take several more days — at least.
After that, the FCC will conduct a third auction, in which winning wireless carriers may bid for specific frequencies. That could take four to six weeks — two to three for prepping carriers on how to bid and two or three weeks for the auction itself.
That means the tell-all public notice will not come out until late February or early March at the earliest.
Broadcasters will know more sooner than that. Within the next three weeks or so, the FCC will send “confidential” letters to all broadcasters telling them whether they have to move and, if so, what their new channel assignments are. The idea is to give broadcasters a head start on planning for their channel moves.
But, again, the broadcasters will be bound not to divulge that information before the public notice is issued.
A wild card is an effort by broadcasters to persuade the FCC to drop or relax its gag order prior to the public notice. If the FCC does, winners may be able to reveal themselves before the public notice comes out,
Comments (4)
Jim Church says:
January 25, 2017 at 9:10 am
There is a period of quiet post auction for a reason, so that one group or another can game the system. How? If you know which channels have been sold, and which have not been sold, you can do deals that no one else who was not in the auction will not know. You just made a bunch of money in the auction, and you now also get a head start to buy others which were not in the auction. I fully understand the reasons to make this info available, but the process of the repack does not start until the process is over, so no real time is saved by knowing early – just an unfair advantage.
Wagner Pereira says:
January 27, 2017 at 3:21 am
A bunch of money off auction. ROFLMAO. Now there is a fake news story. Yep, I sold my Spectrum because I want to stay in Broadcasting….What a detachment from reality.
Patrick Burns says:
January 25, 2017 at 10:46 am
So true but when did LPTV or broadcast ever catch a break against the Googleplex etc !!!
Meagan Zickuhr says:
January 25, 2017 at 1:18 pm
Well…. then NAB 2017 will be Very Interesting! We will know who one by March but we will also know by who has all the Big $$$ and Big Dinners 🙂