LPTV Commenters Agree on Construction Permit Deadline Extension
The FCC should extend the deadline for low-power TV stations to transition to digital and build new facilities after the post-incentive auction repacking, said virtually every response to the NPRM seeking comment on the auction's effect on LPTV. Comments were due Monday, and posted in dockets including 12-268. Though all agreed the deadline should be extended, the low-power broadcasters, wireless and translator associations and public interest groups agreed on little else in the NPRM.
Commenters clashed over allowing LPTV stations to channel share after the repacking versus requiring them to do so and what stations or translators should have priority for new channels. Several commenters asked the FCC to find a way to guarantee that select LPTVs that survive the repacking won't be displaced in the future. “When the process is over, that should be the last time that qualifying LPTV stations are banished to Never Never Land,” said LPTV broadcaster DTV America.
Though different ways of deciding the post-repacking time frame for requiring stations to convert to digital were mentioned, most comments favored giving stations at least a year after the repacking process is complete. The extra time for construction deadline is important because of the large amount of station modifications that will occur after the repacking, said numerous commenters, including the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, NAB and Sinclair. “Forcing these large groups of licensees and permittees to quickly rebuild to a new channel assignment channel 36 and below will take away critical resources from the primary and Class-A station rebuilds,” said the coalition. It said the FCC shouldn't adopt a “cookie-cutter” approach to setting a deadline. Until the repacking, the FCC doesn't know enough to set a deadline, said the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance. “The real-world environment will dictate the reasonable transition and construction periods for LPTV and translator stations.”
Voluntary channel sharing for LPTVs after the incentive auction was endorsed by numerous commenters, including ATBA. While LPTV commenters and the Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasting Coalition said such a sharing policy should allow broadcast maximum flexibility, New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge suggested in a joint filing that the commission consider instituting mandatory channel sharing for LPTV. “Where fallow capacity can be freed up -- or where an operational LPTV station can be accommodated rather than left off the air -- mandatory channel sharing, or at least strong incentives for channel sharing, should be an option,” said the groups. Such a rule should apply particularly to unbuilt construction permits, they said. A mandatory sharing rule would help preserve large blocks of unlicensed spectrum, they said. The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association also suggested sharing as allowing larger blocks for unlicensed use, though it endorsed a voluntary sharing plan. The FCC should “emphasize efficiency in the displacement process” to create unbroken blocks of spectrum for unlicensed, WISPA said. Other groups expressed doubt about the efficacy of channel sharing. The benefits of sharing are “small” for LPTV and translators, said the National Translator Association.
FCC treatment of translators in the auction is arbitrary and focuses on the wrong priorities, the NTA said. By not giving most translators priority or protected status in the auction, the FCC was threatening TV service to much of rural America, NTA said. That the NPRM spends “lavish attention” on the consideration of whether to allow LPTV stations to broadcast audio on an FM band shows “no sense of perspective,” NTA said. Though several LPTV stations said the FCC should allow the audio transmissions, NPR said the matter should be considered in a separate proceeding.
Numerous commenters suggested plans that would allow some LPTV stations or translators to be protected in the auction. Stations that are network affiliated or broadcast a great degree of local content should be protected or given priority status after the repack, said stations owned by Block Communications. LPTV stations with licenses that are only sporadically on-air or not on-air at all “do not deserve as much protection as local LPTV stations that are on the air utilizing regularly scheduled local programming,” said LPTV broadcaster LMO Christian Media and several others with comments using identical text. Stations that meet the requirements for Class A status should be protected in the auction, said the National Religious Broadcasters.
After the repacking, NRB said, displaced LPTV stations should be “automatically grantedmandatory cable carriage status at their new location/channel upon constructing their new facilities.” DTV America suggested the commission allow LPTV stations to qualify for “post-repack primary status” to end the threat of further displacement after the auction.
The FCC could also preserve LPTV by allowing it a broader use of its spectrum, said Spectrum Evolution, Sinclair, and several LP broadcasters. If the FCC took a “technology neutral” stance on LPTV, stations “could continue to offer broadcast services, including multiple free program streams, while adding a multitude of non-broadcast services, such as subscription video, audio channels, and data services,” Spectrum Evolution said. NAB said the auction's effects on LPTV could be addressed by moving away from a variable band plan and changing how LPTV is prioritized. "Both the variable band plan and the prioritization of unlicensed service over displaced LPTV and translator stations, are before the Commission on reconsideration," NAB said.