CPB Board Plans to Ask FCC for Specific Plan to Avoid White Spaces After Spectrum Auction
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting board unanimously approved a resolution urging the FCC to ensure that the broadcast spectrum incentive auctions won’t inadvertently create TV channels that aren’t available to communities served by public broadcasting stations, which it called white spaces. Board members adopted the resolution Thursday during a CPB Broadcast Spectrum Committee meeting, as it prepared for the expected release of the auction rules at the May 15 FCC monthly meeting, said CPB President Patricia Harrison. The resolution “puts formal parameters around our concerns,” she said.
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CPB has been very active in communicating with the FCC the issues of concern to public broadcasting on the upcoming incentive auction, Harrison said. CPB began addressing the issues in 2012, met with FCC staff and outside experts and filed comments, she said. CPB also engaged Booz & Co. “to provide an analysis of the most likely impacts on public broadcasting and a framework in which stations can analyze their options … and then assess the burdens that the repacking process might place on them,” she said.
The CPB, PBS, NAB and other entities met this week with Chairman Tom Wheeler and other FCC staff. (See separate report below in this issue.) The groups reasserted concerns about the possible creation of white spaces, “literally blackout zones in which no over-the-air public television service will remain,” Harrison said. The public TV representatives asked the FCC to include protections “against the inadvertent creation of these white areas in their auction process,” she said. Harrison and PBS President Paula Kerger asked to meet with Wheeler privately, but Wheeler preferred a group meeting, “which is a departure from his predecessor,” Harrison said.
During the meeting with FCC staff, CPB Chief Operating Officer Vincent Curren called attention to the possibility that, “especially in communities where the FCC was holding an auction and there’s only one public television station, a result of that auction could be the elimination of over-the-air public television service to that community,” Curren said. Auctions could occur in about six communities where public TV stations are operated by institutions whose primary missions don’t involve public broadcasting, he said. “In those cases, we have a particular concern that service could be lost and that we may not learn of an institution’s decision to submit their spectrum into the auction process.” Curren also urged the FCC to announce publicly the markets in which auctions would be held. Meeting participants also noted the importance of protecting translators, especially in states like Utah and Colorado, where public TV stations are heavily dependent on translators to reach viewers, said Ted Krichels, senior vice president-system development and media strategy. The public TV representatives also made the FCC staff aware of concerns for stations serving mostly minority communities, Krichels added.
CPB hosted a separate meeting this week with general managers from 13 stations to develop principles to inform local station decision making about their spectrum, Krichels said. The GMs developed a draft set of principles and decided to turn the draft principles over to the Affinity Group Coalition, which represents the affinity groups in public TV, he said. This group will release the draft to all station managers, Krichels said. (klane@warren-news.com)