LPTV Industry Pessimistic About Fallout From Incentive Auction
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.
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The FCC didn’t comment on the calls for legal action, but in a news media call Thursday, Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein said the results PN contains data that should make it possible to analyze the effect of the auction on LPTV. He outlined ways the commission will help LPTV stations and translators displaced by the repacking, such as generating an analysis of available space for relocation, and issuing a procedures PN on LPTV stations seeking new assignments or modifications, so LPTV and translator stations can begin analyzing possible options. The agency will issue a procedures PN detailing the steps and timing for LPTV and translators to come in to request new assignments/modifications, Epstein said.
A legal fund to battle the repacking is being “talked about,” Gravino said. Though he said LPTV has yet to challenge the repacking in court and the industry has “kept its powder dry,” there have been several legal challenges to the auction rules based on the expected displacement of LPTV stations. Mako Communications (see 1608300056) and Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia (see 1606290057) lost cases on whether the FCC had the authority to take LPTV spectrum. FAB has another case on the matter with oral argument pending in May (see 1703130064). Gravino indicated he's more focused on using the court cases to slow the repacking process than on winning them. “So if we can now slow down, even a week here, a month there, a court case 6 months over there, then we will be winning, and making them all suffer monetary damages, as they have and are creating for us,” said the newsletter. “Whatever we can do to screw with their repacking and deployment plans, good, let's do it.”
Tannenwald, who represents LPTV broadcasters, didn’t comment on the likely outcome of the coalition’s legal plans. But he said the results PN and the concentrations of broadcasters that will need to be repacked indicate tough times ahead for LPTV stations, especially in bigger markets. LPTV broadcasters are the only local channels in some markets and for some communities, Tannenwald said. The FCC likely was expecting to have enough room to find new homes for LPTV stations in many markets, but in tight urban markets, that’s going to be difficult, Tannenwald said.
In Los Angeles, 12 TV stations sold their spectrum in the auction, Kapur noted to us. Before the auction, there were enough channels that many smaller operations serving specific minority communities could find room on subchannels owned by LPTV and Class A stations for a reasonable cost, he said. With 12 stations gone, and some of them relocating to channel-sharing arrangements where there are fewer subchannels to offer, there’s going to be a bandwidth crunch, he said. Channels owned by large entities and foreign countries may be able to find a home in the scrum the auction will cause, but smaller operations likely will be priced out, he said. When that happens, the minority communities losing their local channels will make their voices heard at the FCC, he said. “Nobody knows the fallout in the major markets.”