Reverse Auction Expected to End Wednesday
Bidding in the reverse phase of the incentive auction is expected to end Wednesday, according to the FCC Public Reporting System. Though the final round of the auction was expected to be round 52, the bidding schedule includes two additional…
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rounds, 53 and 54. The additional rounds may not be needed, but are on the schedule to address the possibility of stations moving from UHF to the VHF band or staying in the VHF band that may not have been able to be placed by the auction system prior to those rounds, an FCC spokesman told us. BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk also forecast Monday the imminent conclusion of the reserve auction. The end of the first stage will only trigger a disclosure by the FCC on the initial “bogey” that will have to be topped in order to end the auction, Piecyk wrote. “The size of the bogey will provide some indication of how long the auction could last and how much cash broadcasters could take home,” he said. “However, the bogey is not an indicator on the value of spectrum or what wireless operators are willing to spend. After the bogey is set, our next data points will not start to hit until the end of July, when we expect the forward auction to begin, allowing the wireless operators and Comcast to start bidding on spectrum.” To close, bids in the forward auction must be high enough to pay for the provisional winning bids from the reverse auction plus $1.75 billion of clearing costs and a small amount to cover FCC administrative costs, he wrote. Guesses on the size of the bogey are “all over the map” and BTIG isn’t predicting, Piecyk said. “Consensus for the forward auction appears to remain around $30 billion.”