An advocacy group for Class A stations said...
An advocacy group for Class A stations said FCC policies in the lead-up to the spectrum incentive auction are discouraging participation in the spectrum auction and forcing low-power stations out of the broadcast industry. “This is an attempt to exterminate…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
low-power stations,” said Greg Herman, president of advocacy group Spectrum Evolution and owner of several Class A stations, in an interview Friday. Herman said the FCC has stepped up enforcement of Class A public file obligations, while simultaneously offering not to penalize stations if they don’t participate in the upcoming incentive auction. “If you read between the lines, they're doing everything in their power to revert Class A stations to low power,” Herman said. According to a Spectrum Evolution release emailed Thursday, part of Class A station owners’ dissatisfaction with the FCC comes from a lack of clarity about the spectrum auction. In the release, Herman wrote that the FCC needs to tell stations which markets will be eligible, release information on prices and how they'll be determined, tell stations that want to sell when they'll be allowed to shut down, and clarify when auction compensation will be paid. “You simply have to provide clarity and honesty in the process,” said Herman. “The present regulatory uncertainty and lack of transparency clouding the process, in effect, are encouraging stations to stay away, reducing the amount of spectrum available for repurposing."