Pubcasters Lobby FCC To Exempt Their LPTVs From Vacant Channel Issue Post-Incentive Auction

The Association of Public Television Stations and PBS lobbied FCC officials to exempt noncommerical educational stations' low-power TV outlets from an FCC-proposed vacant channel demonstration requirement in any communities that lose NCE service because of the incentive auction. "As the Commission acknowledges in the rulemaking, most of the 'vacant' television channels after the auction will be available precisely because it is not possible to operate a full-power television station on such channels without causing harmful interference to other full-power stations," said an APTS and PBS filing posted Tuesday in docket 12-268. On the agency-proposed NCE full-power exemption from the vacant channel demo requirement to be for a community without such service due to the auction, it should apply to a community of license, not a designated market area, executives from the groups reported telling FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein and Vice Chairman Howard Symons and Office of Engineering and Technology and Media Bureau officials.