Not Enough Time For Repacking, Say Broadcasters, Antenna Industry
A contracting antenna industry may combine with the unintended consequences of relocating numerous stations to threaten the FCC’s timeline for repacking broadcast channels after the incentive auction, said several panelists at the commission’s TV Broadcast Relocation Fund Reimbursement workshop on Monday (http://fcc.us/1edUHXd). Although the workshop was ostensibly to gather information on the costs repacking will impose on broadcasters that they would then need to be reimbursed for, out of the $1.75 billion relocation fund, the repacking’s timing was the focus of panelists and other attendees. Panelists said a shortage of crews that do large-scale antenna work, the legal and technical complications of altering existing towers, and the uncertainty preventing the industry from getting ready for those challenges are going to make the repacking very difficult to complete on time. “Until we know the real channel that people are going to occupy, we can do a lot of hocus pocus around what-ifs,” said Sinclair Broadcast Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken. “Three years isn’t enough -- it’s a five- to six-year transition, we need to be planning for that."
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There are only six to 12 crews nationwide capable of handling the large multi-ton antennas that many stations would need to move or replace during the repacking, said Dielectric National Sales Manager Joe Zuba. With a short timeline for the repacking, coordinating those crews amid the likely huge demand will be “very difficult,” he said. The number of vendors in the antenna industry has “dwindled” since the DTV transition, said American Tower Vice President-Broadcast Peter Starke. “Pressure should not be put on the industry because of the attrition of vendors,” said Starke. “This is truly the bottleneck.” Zuba put part of the blame for the shrinking of the antenna industry on the FCC’s freeze on channel modifications. “What we currently have is a contraction in all phases of the industry,” Zuba said.
The repacking may not even be the only demand on the antenna industry. Several panelists said low-power TV stations are still undergoing a transition to DTV and some stations will be moving from UHF to VHF because of the auction. Former Association for Maximum Service TV President David Donovan said electronic newsgathering channels will also be relocated soon. All of these efforts will be “draining the same resources,” said Chesapeake RF Consultants President Joe Davis.
Along with scheduling problems, moving a station’s channel has many physical and legal repercussions that would likely need to be compensated for from the relocation fund, said the panelists. Many stations use unique antennas that are intended to broadcast on a specific channel -- such antennas would likely need to be physically replaced for most stations, said Zuba. However, doing so could change the wind load calculation for a tower, affect the other antennas attached to the tower, and change how much power the antenna would draw -- possibly leading to delays and additional costs, he said. Physically altering a tower may also require broadcasters to go before local zoning boards, which could also lead to delays, said Davis. He said broadcasters modifying towers should receive help from Congress to speed up local zoning processes in the manner that wireless companies do.
Relocating broadcasters could be made cheaper and possibly easier through the use of master antenna systems, which would allow several stations with the same azimuth pattern to share an antenna, said Starke. Sharing would lessen the need for new antennas to be placed and for towers to be altered. However, in rural areas, it’s less likely that multiple stations would have the same pattern, and some stations might have to change their patterns to share antennas, said Zuba. However, doing so could change a channel’s coverage area, said NAB Vice President Jane Mago. “Making sure everyone has the same pattern and coverage area may not be in the public interest,” said Mago.
Media Bureau Chief William Lake conducted one of the panels, and revealed some repacking ideas the FCC may be considering. He asked panelists about the possibility of using stations that have elected to “go dark” as they sell their spectrum in the auction as interim facilities for channels that are being relocated. Although some panelists were noncommittal, Association of Public Television Stations Executive Vice President Lonna Thompson said the idea should be looked into. Lake also suggested that the commission was looking into “incentivizing” broadcasters to keep relocation costs low, and asked if relocating broadcasters should be required to use competitive bidding for relocation work.
Aitken and others argued that the time scale of the repacking is flawed, and that the FCC should take more time to allow the industry to ready itself. He said ATSC 3.0 is likely to be adopted shortly after the repacking is finished, necessitating a whole new transition that will cost $1.75 billion to replace outdated technology. “This makes absolutely no sense, and if Congress was aware of what they asked for, they wouldn’t have asked for that,” he said.