LAS VEGAS -- The number of TV stations that chose not to sell their spectrum in the TV incentive auction demonstrates that broadcasting is the "highest and best use of spectrum," NAB President Gordon Smith said, officially opening NAB 2017 Monday. He also discussed ATSC 3.0 and chips in smartphones.
ATSC 3.0 and the post-incentive auction repacking are expected to be the dominant subjects at NAB Show 2017, attorneys, broadcasters and analysts told us. The industry convention officially was to start Saturday. The new standard and the repacking are the biggest topics in broadcasting because they ultimately could determine “where we’re going as an industry,” Sinclair Broadcast Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken said in an interview. While broadcasters are comparing notes on repacking plans and eyeing new ATSC 3.0 equipment, they’ll likely also be talking about channel sharing possibilities, and feeling out potential deals, BIA/Kelsey Chief Economist Mark Fratrik said.
Though the FCC voted 2-1 Thursday to restore the UHF discount and re-examine the rule later this year along with the national broadcast ownership cap, both Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who dissented from the vote, and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said in news conferences after the meeting they believe altering the national cap is the province of Congress. “Something of that significance, I would appreciate additional guidance from Congress,” said Clyburn in response to a question from Communications Daily. O’Rielly reaffirmed his view the agency doesn’t have authority to change the cap, and said he's interested to see how the matter “gets litigated out.”
Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein while planning and running the auction had concerns about funding FirstNet and whether the FCC should skip a clearing target to get the auction to finish faster, he said at Wednesday’s Media Institute luncheon. The talk was Epstein’s first public speech since the end of the incentive auction last week, and at its end he announced that he will leave the FCC at the end of April. Despite its complications, the incentive auction “achieved its major goal” of using a market-based mechanism to determine the price and demand for wireless spectrum, Epstein said. He said he's “neither happy nor disappointed nor anywhere in-between,” about the amount of money raised by the auction.
The restoration of the UHF discount and two rule changes for noncommercial broadcast stations are expected to be approved with minimal changes at Thursday’s FCC commissioners’ meeting (see 1703300066), broadcast attorneys and industry officials told us. Along with restoring the discount, the commission is expected to allow noncommercial education stations to hold third-party fundraisers and to remove a requirement that board members of NCE stations provide personal information to the FCC as part of an ownership data collection effort. Though the vote count on the NCE items is unclear, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn is expected to dissent on restoring the UHF discount, a forecast she supported in a tweet calling April “industry consolidation month at the FCC” (see 1704120062).
The extent of the incentive auction’s effect on low-power TV isn’t known, but after Thursday’s release of the closing and channel reassignment public notice (see 1704130056), industry officials were pessimistic. “There are a lot of people who are extremely disappointed in the outcome,” said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald Friday. LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition Director Mike Gravino sought legal action and outright resistance. “The auction winning bidders need to hear loud and clear that LPTV will NOT be moving when they want to start testing in a [partial economic area] PEA, but when we are ready,” said Gravino in an email titled “Resist the Repack!” The displacement of LPTV will affect minorities disproportionately in major markets, said Ravi Kapur, CEO of Diya TV, a network targeting Indian Americans. “The fallout from this is going to be massive.” Meanwhile, many experts aren't sure what the Dish and Comcast auction results say about those companies' plans.
The FCC is considered likely to grant Fox’s request for a temporary waiver of the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule despite objections raised by a number of public interest groups (see 1703090049), numerous broadcast attorneys told us. Fox wants the waiver to allow it to continue operating the New York Post and running TV stations in the same New York market while awaiting an FCC decision on petitions for reconsideration of the FCC’s 2014 quadrennial ownership review. In a joint opposition filing in docket 07-260 for Monday’s comment deadline, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, Free Press, the United Church of Christ Communication Office and Voice for New Jersey said the waiver is unjustified and granting a temporary waiver that's dependent on a pending reconsideration process would “violate long-standing, sensible Commission policy.”
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn doesn’t support a proposal to eliminate the AM/FM subcaps that has recently been the focus of an industry push (see 1703020052), she told us Monday. “The Commission’s local radio ownership rule was designed to uphold the core principles of competition, localism and viewpoint diversity,” Clyburn said in an emailed statement responding to our question. “These values are at the heart of the Communications Act which is why I continue to believe we must preserve our media ownership rules.”
An item added to the FCC list of circulating proposed rules Friday appears to be a declaratory ruling on a petition requesting that broadcasters be allowed to satisfy equal employment opportunity requirements with postings only online. An FCC spokesman confirmed the petition for rulemaking "Seeking to Allow the Sole Use of Internet Sources for FCC EEO Recruitment Requirements, Declaratory Ruling,” refers to a petition requesting the rule change that was filed in December by Sun Valley Radio and Canyon Media (see 1612190062). "The daily newspaper, previously cited by the FCC as the presumptive way to reach all groups within a community, now pales in its reach within the community compared to the Internet,” said the petition. Currently, broadcasters must widely disseminate job postings, and can't advertise them only online or on their own airwaves, a broadcast attorney told us. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly repeatedly has endorsed loosening the rules.
Broadcaster opposition mounted last week to Prometheus Radio Project’s (PRP) request for a stay of upcoming FM translator siting rules (see 1704040046). NAB now seeks to kill it on procedural grounds, said an opposition filing posted by the FCC Friday. And two broadcast lawyers opposed it earlier last week.