Lower 700 MHz Consolidation Continues
LIN TV will sell 31 lower 700 MHz C-block licenses to Aloha Partners for $32.5 million, it said. The licenses are clustered in Hartford and New Haven, Conn., Providence, R.I., Grand Rapids, Mich. and Austin, Tex. The deal will give Aloha, which has been buying up spectrum rights nationwide, coverage in 85 percent of the top 100 media markets. Through its Hiwire subsidiary, Aloha has been using the spectrum to test a mobile DTV system using the DVB-H standard in Las Vegas with SES Americom.
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LIN will reap a pretty profit on the spectrum if regulators approve the sale. It picked up the spectrum rights in FCC auctions 44 and 49 for just $6.7 million, auction data show. “This was a great asset but seemed like the right time for us to let it go,” said Greg Schmidt, LIN executive vice president of digital media. LIN, one of few broadcasters to take part in those auctions, never used the spectrum. Aloha, the dominant player in both auctions, has continued acquiring spectrum licenses from other winning bidders. Besides its mobile TV foray, Aloha is testing a wireless broadband product in Phoenix.
It’s unclear what this spectrum transaction’s price signals for the coming 700 MHz auction, said an industry source who follows spectrum issues. Bidding has changed a great deal since the FCC auctioned the lower 700 MHz involved in this deal, the source said. “Back in 2002, 2003, the prices were much more uniform across the market,” the source said. But in the AWS auction, some licenses in some locales went for pennies per megahertz per population, while others fetched far higher prices. “It’s really sorting out in a much more sophisticated and complicated way.”