TV Spectrum Speculator Floats Repack Plan

OTA Broadcasting, among the speculators that purchased TV stations with the intention of selling them in the FCC incentive auction, today urged the FCC to permit voluntary channel sharing among stations that have to move to new channels in the post-auction TV band repack as a way to obviate stations being forced off the air and to make sure that wireless carriers are able to “promptly deploy” the spectrum they buy.

“Voluntary transitional channel sharing will provide broadcasters with the opportunity to transition to post-auction channels on a schedule that makes the most sense for each station while accelerating, or at least not disrupting, the 600 MHz [TV band] transition,” OTA says in an FCC filing.

Under the FCC current repacking planning, the filing says, the “daunting reality” is that more than 1,000 TV stations will have to move to new channels within 39 months.

If that proves impossible, the FCC will either have to force some stations off the air or “extend the transition deadline, denying wireless carriers and their customers the benefits of a reallocation of spectrum that by then will be almost a decade in the making.”

In addition to permitting the channel sharing, the OTA says that the FCC should work with broadcasters to identify ” ‘bottleneck stations’ that could expedite the transition by vacating their pre-auction channels in advance of their phase completion date.”

OTA also says the FCC should provide broadcasters with the opportunity to voluntarily sync their move to new channels with the implementation of the new broadcast standard, ATSC 3.0. Both involve overhauls of stations’ RF infrastructures.