LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition to Lobby for LPTV Spectrum Auction
The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition will lobby Congress to hold an auction of low-power TV spectrum separate from the incentive auction, said Director Mike Gravino. Under the coalition's proposal, the federal government would purchase the LPTV spectrum now but not…
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auction it off until after the incentive auction is completed. The promise of future gains from the sale of the LPTV spectrum could be used to justify adding more money to the incentive auction’s relocation fund, or to put off the incentive auction to allow the repacking to coincide with the adoption of ATSC 3.0.,Gravino said. “It’s a Christmas tree bill” that could be used to fix “everything wrong” with the incentive auction, and provide a future source of valuable spectrum, Gravino said. Gravino told us he had been scheduled to brief NAB on the proposal, but he said the meeting was canceled by the broadcast association after we contacted NAB for confirmation. An NAB spokesman said his association has no meetings scheduled with Gravino. In the group's Monday newsletter, it took aim at CEA CEO Gary Shapiro for not knowing some of the intricacies of LPTV. At an ATSC meeting last week, Gravino wrote, he had spoken with Shapiro about the "tax credit plan to free up spectrum and pay LPTV." Shapiro, "as intense as everyone says he is," "simply did not know the basic facts about LPTV, nor the auction process itself," wrote Gravino. "He certainly did not know about the potential impacts on LPTV from the auction, nor how LPTV can screw up the auction process. But there is a reason he is considered the toughest guy in the room when it comes to lobbying and TV. He listened very carefully to the distilled data I presented, was literally shocked by it, and asked my permission to quote me when he was on the panel." At the panel, Shapiro challenged NAB CEO Gordon Smith to agree that broadcasters wouldn't further try to delay the auction (see 1505140040). CEA had no comment Tuesday.