AVS Official Topic - The FCC & Broadcast Spectrum - Page 66

Originally Posted by nycdigital09

isn't there enough wireless devices among us allready, their outta be a governing body trying to restrict their numbers. you know that there are more than 5 wireless devices being used per person in this country. like most sane person I use only 2, a cell phone, wireless internet. there has to be something more to the story than just more broadband space needed. fcc should have someone lookin over their shoulders.

The Coalition for Free TV and Broadband says it is not at all happy about the language in S.911, the Public Safety Spectrum and Wireless Innovation Act, the bill that just made it through the Senate Commerce Committee. The Coalition says it includes full and low power television operators, but its main concern at the moment is the protection of low-power community broadcast stations.

The Coalition applauded the attempt of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to include language via amendment that would write protections for LPTV into the bill, which could lead to voluntary incentive auctions in the television band, spectrum repacking and potentially, the loss of LPTV stations.

Unfortunately for the Coalition, it also had to lament McCaskill’s withdrawal of the amendment at the request of sponsor and committee chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)...

...The Coalition plans to lobby Capitol Hill to make its views known. They include:

* We believe that the Federal Government should not take spectrum away from free television broadcasters and give it to a few wireless monopolies.

* We believe that if the spectrum is lost, hundreds of television stations that provide free, local, minority, and faith-based programs could go off the air.

* We believe that if the spectrum is auctioned, all Class A, LPTV stations, and translators must be included.

* We believe that television broadcasters have solutions that will allow them to provide free or low cost wireless internet to their communities.

* We believe, if allowed to fully utilize their bandwidth, television broadcasters will provide a necessary alternative to traditional wireless internet providers. This competition will be good for the consumer.

Originally Posted by kenglish

Reading between the lines, the last three items can have another meaning:

Same as above. I've heard comments from LPTV people, that they would like to convert much of their spectrum to internet services. Shouldn't they, instead, be trying to get grants to establish such things as subsidized rural broadband, utilizing spectrum that is not already being used for TV? That would keep a free TV service in their communities, as well as provide broadband. Or, is the BB service thing too lucrative, compared to TV?

Originally Posted by klandry7

Antennas Direct Disputes CEA Survey Overlooking the Millions Embracing Digital TV

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Originally Posted by Calaveras

I guess I was just naive but I thought some portion of channels 52 - 69 were supposed to be used to provide rural wireless internet service. I'm still waiting.

Chuck

Originally Posted by klandry7

Antennas Direct Disputes CEA Survey Overlooking the Millions Embracing Digital TV

Originally Posted by dkreichen1968

Does that sound like OTA viewership is going up or down?

Originally Posted by LithOTA

OTA gets bigger as more people get clued in. The NAB needs to advertise OTA, with the antenna maker's logos featured prominently. They need to let the public know that there is an alternative to a monthly utility bill for television. As word spreads, OTA grows.
All of us in the antenna world should act as facilitators, liberating our friends and family by building them antennas, helping them with equipment purchases, and imparting our considerable collective wisdom. A great way to pique their interest is to run the TVFool for their house, print it, and show it to them.

Originally Posted by LithOTA

All of us in the antenna world should act as facilitators, liberating our friends and family by building them antennas, helping them with equipment purchases, and imparting our considerable collective wisdom. A great way to pique their interest is to run the TVFool for their house, print it, and show it to them.

Originally Posted by LithOTA

OTA gets bigger as more people get clued in. The NAB needs to advertise OTA, with the antenna maker's logos featured prominently.

Originally Posted by LithOTA

OTA gets bigger as more people get clued in. The NAB needs to advertise OTA, with the antenna maker's logos featured prominently. They need to let the public know that there is an alternative to a monthly utility bill for television. As word spreads, OTA grows.
All of us in the antenna world should act as facilitators, liberating our friends and family by building them antennas, helping them with equipment purchases, and imparting our considerable collective wisdom. A great way to pique their interest is to run the TVFool for their house, print it, and show it to them.

Originally Posted by Thomas Desmond

However, there are other cable/satellite subscribers who hold various mistaken notions ... These folks are the targets who could effectively be reached by a campaign. And while I don't know how many of these people are out there, even if it is only 10% of all households,

Originally Posted by BCF68

When I complain about my cable company not having NFL Network I've been told by people that NFL Network needs stand on it's own and it's unfair for non-football fans to subsidize that channel. Why should the rules be different for the others? If FoodNetwork can't stand on it's own maybe it shouldn't exist?

Originally Posted by BCF68


No they aren't. Same rules should apply to all.

Actually no they don't. The judge ruled against the NFL 2 months ago on that issue.

Jealous much?

Originally Posted by LithOTA

A la carte for cable channels will never happen. Specialty networks like Food, Golf, AMC, HGTV, Travel, & Bravo could not survive without being sudsidized by ESPN, Discovery, TNT, CNN, etc. It's too bad, it would be great to be able to order the channels you want for a buck or two each per month.

Few people get their TV signals over the air anymore according to one recent estimate, only about 15 percent of viewers watch their shows the old-fashioned way but broadcasters still enjoy substantial bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. Television stations are still major local economic forces in every congressional district, and TV advertising is still an essential ingredient in every political campaign.

Those factors combine to make the industry's trade group, the National Association of Broadcasters, a powerful lobbying force in Washington and on Capitol Hill especially. And NAB's clout appears to have been enhanced by its current leader, Gordon Smith, a leading Republican centrist who represented Oregon in the Senate for a dozen years (and rose to a senior seat on the Commerce Committee) before being defeated in 2008. Since joining NAB the next year, he has traded easily on his long-standing relationships with plenty of influential Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate starting with the three of his cousins who are senators, Democrats Tom Udall of New Mexico and Mark Udall of Colorado, and Republican Mike Lee of Utah.

Aides say Smith's influence has helped the broadcasters successfully tamp down any thought of requiring the television stations to give back their spectrum licenses. So, too, has the Republican takeover of the House. While an incentive-auction plan has stirred some interest in the Senate, in the House the GOP majority of the House Energy and Commerce Committee began focusing on the issue publicly only in April. That slower pace has afforded broadcasters time to shore up support for their position and make doubly sure any spectrum legislation contains language that will protect their interests...

...Smith argues that broadcast programming is still popular, and television stations are still important community resources ones that have proven to be more resilient than wireless networks after natural disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes.

The broadcasters say that their one to many model of transmitting information to viewers is at least as deserving of spectrum space as the wireless companies' one to one model of transmitting videos and data to individual users. Smith also doesn't hesitate to point out that the shows broadcast over the air are generally more wholesome than the standard fare on the Internet.

If you apply decency standards to wireless broadband, you'll collapse their business model, Smith said. We're not in the indecency business. On broadcast news, you'll only find clothed pictures of congressmen.

And broadcasters never miss a chance to remind lawmakers that they turned over a big chunk of their share of the airwaves only two years ago, because of the congressionally mandated switch from analog to digital broadcasting. The TV industry argues that no station should be forced to give up its license, and that stations choosing to do so should be allowed to set the minimum asking price in a subsequent auction.

The broadcasters are especially worried about how remaining television stations will be treated in a repacking of the spectrum that would inevitably be necessary to open bigger slices of spectrum for auction. They say the stations that choose to hang on to their spectrum licenses shouldn't be moved into technologically less desirable frequencies...

...Smith's former colleague in the Oregon congressional delegation, Greg Walden, has become chairman this year of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications. A rising star in the Republican caucus he's likely to chair the House campaign operation for 2014 who began his career as a radio broadcaster and went on to own five radio stations, Walden is perhaps NAB's most important single congressional ally. (He and Smith served in the state legislature together before serving together in Congress, and Smith still has a home in Walden's congressional district.)

Wireless is not the sole venue for innovation, Walden said at a hearing three weeks ago. Over-the-air broadcasting remains a vital and important part of the communications infrastructure.

There is still more than a year to go before this Congress is over, but for now the odds seem solid that the broadcasters will get what they want and that's in large measure because the incentive-auction proposal will only move as part of a larger telecommunications bill, and that bill won't get done unless the standoff is broken over the public safety spectrum. So if Walden keeps resisting the Senate's entreaties on that score, his recalcitrance will have the added benefit of helping the broadcasters.

Although Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller wants to get his bill on the floor before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, broadcasters want language added that would insulate them in the big spectrum shuffle that would ensue. For example, NAB wants lawmakers to sunset the incentive-auction authority that the legislation would grant to the FCC.

Between NAB's own clout and the Republicans' control of the House, it's a safe bet that no spectrum bill that's not to the broadcasters' liking will be enacted any time soon.