Repacking Plan Slammed for Not Giving Broadcasters Enough Time for CPs
Stations repacked due to the incentive auction will have three months (CD May 15 p4) to file construction permits for alterations to their antennas and transmitters necessary to broadcast on their new TV channel. That’s not going to be enough time for CPs, said broadcasters, an engineer and industry attorneys in interviews this week. Though the auction order approved May 15 hasn’t been released yet, the three-month deadline was announced in the supplementary materials released by the FCC last week. With a limited number of consultant engineers to prepare the permit applications, a limited amount of FCC staff to process them, and a large amount of needed permits if the auction is successful, the time frame isn’t going to work, industry participants said.
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"This is wishful thinking,” said consulting engineer Don Everist, president of Cohen Dippel. “You don’t want people artificially rushing their engineering to meet a filing deadline,” said Sinclair Senior Vice President Strategy and Policy Rebecca Hanson. Broadcasters last week criticized the FCC for sticking within the order a methodology for determining TV stations’ coverage area they say hurts broadcasters (CD May 16 p1).
The FCC reached the three-month figure based on the Widelity Report, a study of the repacking, which concluded it was ambitious but doable, an FCC said. After the three-month permit window, the Media Bureau will assign stations individual construction deadlines, with all work to be completed within three years, according to the FCC. The three-year deadline is part of the Spectrum Act, a deadline for the FCC to spend the $1.75 billion reimbursement fund. The pressure of the construction deadline is likely one of the driving forces behind the three-month deadline for permits, said a broadcast official.
Industry commenters on the repacking have long said that there aren’t enough engineers to meet the demands the repacking will impose. That is certainly the case for consultant engineers, of which there is a limited supply, Everist said. If the auction is successful, some engineers could find themselves “doing a year’s worth of work in three months,” Drinker Biddle broadcast attorney Howard Liberman said. Although not all stations will have to be repacked, conservative guesses would likely still run to several hundred needing CPs within three months, he said. The needs of the CPs would likely vary with stations’ location and circumstances, with smaller cities only having one or two repacked stations while larger ones have many more. “It’s complicated,” Liberman said. “Some stations will stay where they are, others will get new channels.”
Some stations may need to broadcast from new sites, Everist said, which could lead to many delays before a permit is filed. Zoning permissions, Federal Aviation Administration approval and consultations with structural engineers for changes to towers could all hold the process back, Everist said. “You couldn’t get it done in 30 months.” Everist is also concerned that conflicts between stations, fearing interference could also delay the construction process. Such disputes will be handled by the commission in the same three-month window, the FCC official said.
Some broadcast officials are also concerned about a personnel crunch at the FCC side, where CPs are processed. The FCC official said the commission is looking into increasing staff to deal with the issue, and possibly hiring a third party to oversee the reimbursement process -- one of the recommendations of the Widelelity Report. Several industry observers said similar bottlenecks are likely to plague the entire repacking -- as with consultant engineers, there is a dearth of tower crews and antenna manufacturing facilities. “I don’t think the timetable is realistic at all,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald. He pointed out how it could be resolved: An unsuccessful auction. “The fewer stations that need repacking, the easier it gets,” he said. -- Monty Tayloe (mtayloe@warren-news.com)