TV Industry Holds Off on Filing Spectrum Economic Studies
Broadcasters are holding off for now on publicizing economic research on the value of the airwaves used by TV stations, as the FCC looks to reallocate some of the industry’s spectrum, industry officials told us. Some broadcasters have said they looked forward to being able to unveil such an analysis after the CEA funded a study that found it would cost much less than the spectrum is worth to provide subscription TV to those reliant on over-the-air TV (CD Nov 2 p1)). Such analysis by broadcasters is being done now and may be filed with the FCC as soon as next month, industry officials said.
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The 19 days the commission gave industry to reply to its spectrum public notice may have been too short for broadcasters to ready a thorough economic analysis of their own, industry lawyers said. Submitting economic studies with the commission as ex parte filings after the Tuesday’s public notice comment deadline makes sense, some said. By holding off making such a filing until January, the industry won’t give the wireless and consumer electronics industries that want spectrum repurposed time to rebut broadcaster arguments until after the holidays, they said.
“We're working with the economists to look at this from the proper economic model,” said NAB General Counsel Jane Mago. She declined to identify them. The NAB document set to be filed with the commission after our deadline addresses the CEA-funded study but isn’t “a full-blown point-by-point analysis on it,” Mago said. “We are submitting our own technical analysis of the way we use the spectrum and things like that. We are also anticipating that there will be more that we submit as we go along.”
Tuesday’s NAB filing was to have addressed claims that more spectrum is needed right away, Mago added. “Someone needs to do a spectrum inventory of what spectrum is available and how it’s being used, how it’s being allocated, in order to make reasonable judgments about where to go here.” The CEA-backed study “suffers from numerous methodological flaws,” the Association for Maximum Service Television said late Tuesday in a preview of an FCC filing that the group will make with the NAB. MSTV President David Donovan declined to elaborate.
Concern raised by the wireless industry about a looming spectrum shortage is overblown, other broadcast executives said. “The looming spectrum crisis has been artificially caused and there are plenty of ways for the carriers to get more efficiency out of their systems,” an executive said. “They've yet to deploy the analog spectrum that they got back from the broadcasters” in the FCC’s 700 MHz auction. Submitting filings to the regulator on spectrum utilization is a way for broadcasters to address such concerns head-on, the executive added.
“I didn’t encourage clients to do an econometric analysis because I think that’s a second-level issue,” said industry lawyer John Hane of Pillsbury, whose clients include LIN TV. “I don’t think you even need to address that until someone points out that there is a shortage that needs to be addressed.” The FCC’s short comment period was “kind of unfair” and “paralyzed” some in the industry who needed more time to react, said lawyer Vincent Curtis of Fletcher Heald, whose clients include TV stations. FCC broadband staff members, he said, seem to have “made up their mind -- they want to take the spectrum away from TV people.”