Broadcasters need to “take care” to avoid ending...

Broadcasters need to “take care” to avoid ending up with “poor relations” with FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, said Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasting Coalition Executive Director Preston Padden in a statement on the EOBC website Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1gRKNZR). Padden said broadcaster reactions to two recent events are “warning signs” that broadcasters’ relationship with Wheeler may be headed south. After the FCC’s announcement of expanded outreach to broadcasters on the incentive auction (CD Jan 31 p7) and after news broke that Wheeler’s office is working on a plan to tighten rules governing broadcaster sharing agreements (CD Feb 3 p11), some broadcast industry sources described both events as possible attempts to force participation in the incentive auction. “The trade press was filled with accusations and innuendo from broadcast industry sources,” said Padden, calling the idea “a suggestion as ridiculous as it was unhelpful.” The broadcast response to expanded outreach on the incentive auction “should have been ‘Thank You,'” said Padden. The idea that plans to tighten joint sales agreement rules are rooted in forcing participation in the auction is “provably false,” Padden said. Shared service agreements “and JSAs are prevalent in small- and mid-sized markets -- markets where the FCC almost certainly will NOT be buying spectrum in the auction.” Broadcasters don’t help their cause by “whispering provably false accusations of bad motives on the part of the new FCC Chair,” Padden said. “Let’s try to make this Chairman our friend."