Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler promised the incentive auction would be an “extravaganza,” but it didn't deliver, NAB President Gordon Smith said on C-SPAN's The Communicators, scheduled for broadcast over the weekend. “It was nothing of the case,” Smith said, saying the lower-than-expected results of the auction show the spectrum crunch it was meant to alleviate never really existed. Smith said promises of large payouts to broadcasters and to the Treasury weren't fulfilled. Broadcasters will receive around $10 billion from the auction, and the Treasury over $6 billion (see 1702100064). Those numbers are smaller than was promised, Smith said: Those promises were “bravado.”
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's speaking about radio at a broadcast conference, as he did Thursday at a North American Broadcast Association event, is a positive sign for the industry, broadcast attorneys said in interviews. Though Pai’s speech -- his second outside the FCC as chairman -- on FM chips in smartphones and efforts to revitalize AM radio contained little new information, a sitting chairman knowledgeable about and focused on radio is a boon to broadcasters, they said. “The important thing is that he’s speaking about radio,” said Wilkinson Barker's Howard Liberman. “I don’t know any broadcaster who isn’t elated” about Pai’s interest in radio, said Womble Carlyle's John Garziglia.
“There might be majority rule, but minority rights are important, too,” said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, now the sole representative of the minority Democratic Party on the FCC, in a radio interview Tuesday (see 1702150022). That position thrust Clyburn into the role of “loyal opposition,” charged with providing a vocal counterpoint to Chairman Ajit Pai, numerous former eighth-floor staffers and communications attorneys said in interviews. Predictions differ on whether Clyburn and Pai will enjoy a more collaborative relationship than former Chairman Tom Wheeler and Pai did when the latter was in the minority. Everyone we spoke with said Clyburn’s recent statements denouncing Pai’s moves on issues that she values -- such as inmate calling -- are no surprise.
Ex parte filings and blog posts from NAB and pay-TV groups about the draft ATSC 3.0 NPRM show where the battle lines will be in the comment phase and on an eventual ATSC 3.0 order, industry officials from both sides told us.
Bidding in the clock phase of the FCC incentive auction ended Friday after round 58, with forward auction bidders having bid $19.63 billion for 600 MHz spectrum that will be vacated by TV broadcasters, according to the Public Reporting System. Roughly $10 billion of those funds will go to pay broadcasters for winning bids in the reverse auction, more than $2 billion will go for reimbursement to repacked broadcasters and to cover the costs of the auction, and more than $6 billion will go to the federal treasury, Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein and Deputy Chair Jean Kiddoo said in a blog post. The $19.63 billion raised in the forward auction means the incentive auction generated “the second highest total proceeds of any Commission spectrum license auction in its 20-plus year history,” said the blog post.
Recent announcements of incentive auction proceeds by several large publicly traded broadcasters don't provide much to extrapolate from on how other, quieter broadcasters did or where successful bids were concentrated, analysts and attorneys told us. Though learning that Sinclair will receive $313 million, Tribune Media $190 million, Gray Television $90.8 million and Fox Television Stations $350 million (see 1702080081) is interesting, the vast majority of the $10 billion clearing cost is unaccounted for, said Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Frank Jazzo.
The FCC Enforcement Bureau is no longer allowed to settle enforcement actions begun by the full commission without a vote of all members, Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement Wednesday on his latest change to processes. Pai has announced a process modification each day this week (see 1702070072 and 1702060062). Meanwhile, the other Republican commissioner asked the agency to be more consistent with deadlines, holding all to them after a general amnesty period except for when waivers are granted. And AT&T slammed past FCC enforcement measures.
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will seek “common ground” with FCC Republicans and won’t “walk away” from commission items she agrees with “70 to 80 plus percent of,” she said during an impromptu news conference at a Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council event Tuesday. Neither of the FCC’s last chairs -- former Chairman Tom Wheeler and Clyburn herself in an interim role -- received that kind of reciprocity from the other side, she said. “I start at the 50-yard line."
The FCC waived the incentive auction prohibited communications rules that prevented broadcasters from discussing their bids and bidding strategies, said an Incentive Auction Task Force and Media and Wireless bureaus public notice. Some had been expecting such a relaxation after it was signaled in an early action under new FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Broadcast lawyers welcomed the move, in comments to us after Monday's PN.
Chairman Ajit Pai will further change the way the FCC releases information to the news media and public, he said in a statement Monday, vowing not to release items publicly or to the news media until all commissioners have seen them. “During the past few years, the Chairman’s Office often briefed reporters or issued a blog about matters to be voted upon at the FCC’s monthly meetings before sharing those matters with Commissioners,” Pai said in a statement. “As a Commissioner, I thought that actions like these were inappropriate and disrespectful of other Commissioners.”