The range of auction results announced by stations exemplifies the intent of Congress and the FCC that each licensee in the incentive auction has a range of choices for what to do with its spectrum, Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein said at America's Public Television Stations conference Tuesday. Though he said the FCC couldn't release details about how specific stations did, such information will become available when the commission issues its channel reassignment public notice in April. At that time, the FCC will "open the tent" to allow industry to see how the auction "played out," Epstein said. In a videotaped message played before the panel, Chairman Ajit Pai said he hoped the funds raised from the auction by public TV stations allow them to "enhance the services they provide."
America's Public Television Stations President Patrick Butler conceded Washington is "rife with rumor" that President Donald Trump will recommend a budget that doesn't include funding for the CPB (see 1702230060), and noncommercial educational stations shouldn't "fear the battle that will come." Along with public TV's extensive support in Congress, 70 percent of Trump voters support funding CPB and would tell the president to "leave public television alone," Butler said at an APTS conference.
Anxiety rose over the fate of the CPB in recent weeks, after reports the Trump administration may be mulling a FY 2018 budget that places its funding on the chopping block. The White House and appropriators resisted confirming any objections to the CPB last week. Broadcasting officials told us Capitol Hill appropriators may stand poised to uphold the funding, if the administration does push such a proposal.
The FCC approved unanimously an NPRM on ATSC 3.0 and an order relaxing location rules for FM translators at Thursday’s commissioners' meeting, as expected (see 1702210058). Commissioner Mignon Clyburn supported the NPRM on the new TV standard, but was critical of aspects of the document and said it didn’t do enough to show that TV consumers won’t have their service disrupted by the transition to ATSC 3.0.
The wording of the FCC’s draft NPRM on ATSC 3.0 makes it “very clear” the FCC will adopt the new standard, and an order is expected this fall, said Jerald Fritz, One Media executive vice president-strategic and legal affairs, in an FCBA CLE on the new television standard Tuesday.
Both broadcast items scheduled for Thursday’s commissioners' meeting, on ATSC 3.0 and the 40-mile limit for FM translators (see 1702020060), are expected to be approved unanimously, industry and FCC officials told us. The final version of a draft order that would do away with the 40-mile limit on locating an FM translator is expected to show little change from the version released by the FCC when it went on circulation, but the draft NPRM on ATSC 3.0 is still in flux, said an official. The final NPRM is seen as likely to include some questions on issues raised by the American Cable Association and American Television Alliance (see 1702140065), but not many other substantive changes, said broadcast and pay-TV officials.
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.