Media Bureau Repacking Report Finds Many ‘Bottlenecks’
Many “potential bottlenecks” are involved in repacking broadcasters after the spectrum incentive auction, said an FCC Media Bureau-commissioned report (http://bit.ly/1piNbdY) from Widelity released alongside a request for comments (http://fcc.us/1r7BI4E) on using the report as a basis for a catalog of reimbursable repacking expenses. The report lists the potential costs of the antenna replacements, retunings and engineering procedures expected to be involved in the repacking, and analyzes how those industries will respond to the increased demand it will cause. As broadcasters requested (CD Nov. 5 p3), it also takes some “soft costs” such as attorney fees into account. “This Catalog is not exhaustive, and inclusion or exclusion of a particular category of expenses should not be read to state or imply that the expense will or will not be eligible for reimbursement,” said the bureau in a public notice issued along with the report.
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Though the report is detailed in its examination of potential costs, it leaves some larger questions unanswered, said NAB Executive Vice President-Strategic Planning Rick Kaplan. The bureau hasn’t made clear “how this information is going to be used,” he said. Questions remain about how the projected costs in the report will be compared with stations’ real costs, whether some costs could be paid upfront or whether the $1.75 billion TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund would be treated as a budget for the repacking, which NAB has said would allow all the repacked stations to be fully compensated. “We appreciate the FCC’s effort, but now we need to sit down and talk” about how the report will be used, Kaplan said.
Several examples of potential repackings are with estimated costs and timelines are included in the report. “Moving channel 32 to channel 28” assumes a top-mounted single channel slot antenna with vertical polarization on a 1,200-foot tower, along with a destination channel that can use the same transmission line. According to the report, moving such a station would take more than nine months, and cost about $1.7 million. A “super complicated” example included in the report involving a massive broadcast tower in San Francisco would require 41 months to complete and cost more than $11 million, the report said. Arrived at by interviewing broadcasters, the numbers in the report appear accurate, said Dielectric Antenna Sales Executive Joseph Zuba. There are still a lot of unknowns, he said.
The timing of transitioning broadcasters to new channels is a major theme of the report. Though it doesn’t explicitly recommend a phased repacking, wherein different channels are repacked in phases to stagger the effects, the report repeatedly said spacing out the transition would mean less impact on the industries and engineers involved in relocating broadcasters. “If the transition cannot be time-phased in a logical sequence by industry and/or the FCC (i.e., a regional or sequential market basis), these resources may become an issue in achieving a timely post-repacking transition process,” the report said of broadcast engineer services. “Depending on the number of stations that are required to move channels or choose to move, there will be significant demand on a finite number of skilled, trained, and experienced resources.”
"No more than” 14 crews in the country are capable of working on tall or complex broadcast towers, and a downsized antenna industry could have trouble meeting a simultaneous influx of orders, the report said. Tower work can also require extensive permitting, from local zoning boards to the Federal Aviation Administration, all of which can mean delays in repacking work, said the report. Since work on one tower antenna could affect adjacent antennas that aren’t even being repacked, extensive coordination will be required, the report said. In a phased transition, a station that’s ready to be moved to a new channel assignment may also have to wait until a station in an adjacent market completes its transition, which could also cause delays. To address severe tower crew shortages, the report recommends trying to recruit trained personnel who may have left the industry after the DTV transition, or looking internationally. “Once the DTV transition was completed, the demand for tall tower crews dropped off significantly resulting in fewer experienced personnel staying in the industry,” the report said.
The Widelity report leaves open the methodology of how stations will be reimbursed, but recommends that the commission hire a “reimbursement contractor” to manage the reimbursement fund “including reimbursement submission review, fund tracking, and auditing to determine if the funds were spent in accordance with program guidelines.” Negotiations over reimbursement could be one of the factors that affects timing of the repacking process, the report said. The commission should “engage the contractor no later than 180 days before the reverse auction is scheduled to commence,” the report said.
The report accounts for some of the “soft costs” requested by numerous broadcasters in earlier comments, under a column titled “professional services” that includes estimates of the fees attorneys may charge for various filing requirements. However, some of the requested soft costs, such as marketing expenses for stations coping with reduced power or a new channel, or for repacking-connected overtime, are not included. -- Monty Tayloe (mtayloe@warren-news.com)