LPTV Seen Getting CP Extension

The FCC will likely issue a blanket extension of construction permit deadlines for LPTV stations, several attorneys who represent such stations said in interviews Thursday. The reply comment period for a petition from Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance requesting such an extension ended Friday (CD Sept 4 p13). All commenters in docket 03-185 supported such an extension, except the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, which didn’t respond to our request for comment.

The low amount of opposition is only part of the reason industry attorneys believe the extension will be granted, said Shainis & Peltzman broadcast attorney Aaron Shainis, who represents LPTV clients but didn’t file comments in the proceeding. It would be “unconscionable” for the FCC to require stations to invest in building digital facilities when those stations can’t be sure they'll have a channel to broadcast on after the incentive auction, Shainis said. “The last thing the FCC wants is to be embarrassed.” The Media Bureau declined to comment.

"Some kind of blanket extension is inevitable,” said Fletcher Heald LPTV attorney Peter Tannenwald, who filed comments supporting the deadline extension on behalf of LPTV licensee CTB Spectrum Services. Since for many licensees building out their permits without certainty about the incentive auction would be prohibitively expensive, not granting a blanket extension would be the equivalent of taking away already issued CPs, Tannenwald said. Though the commission could issue extensions on a case-by-case basis, the amount of paperwork that would entail for the commission and for licensees make that unlikely, LPTV attorneys said. “It would surprise me if the commission retained a case-by-case deadline, just out of plain fairness,” Tannenwald said.

LPTV attorneys are less sure about the manner of the extension. Though ATBA’s petition and subsequent comments asked for a quickly granted stand-alone extension, CTB and the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition had asked that it be part of the commission’s planned rulemaking on LPTV stations and the incentive auction (CD Aug 18 p6). It’s not clear which tack the commission would take.

LPTV operators can feel secure that a decision on an extension will come quickly because of the looming incentive auction, Tannenwald said. Even if the extension is delayed until a full LPTV rulemaking, that rulemaking would have to come before the incentive auction -- relatively soon on an FCC time scale, he said. “There’s already so much uncertainty with the auction, it would be just crazy not to” grant a blanket extension, LPTV owner Ron Bruno said.

Not granting the extension would leave LPTV operators in “a terrible crunch,” LPTV attorney Michael Couzens said. However, the commission granting it could be seen as an indicator that the FCC doesn’t know “how intense” the post-incentive auction repacking will be, and is seeking to soften its impact on LPTV operators, he said. Uncertainty about where a station will end up is particularly taxing in LPTV, because they can’t rely on pay-TV carriage to generate viewers and advertising, Bruno said. “They have to work at it,” he said. Station branding, including a station’s channel, is much more important to an LPTV licensee, he said.