Broadcasters Get Breathing Room on Spectrum, with AT&T/T-Mobile
Broadcasters are getting some breathing room on spectrum reallocation, because of AT&T’s agreement last week to buy T-Mobile for $39 billion, said station-group executives and their lawyers. They said the surprise takeover by AT&T has already meant that attention on Capitol Hill has been shifted to T-Mobile, and away somewhat from efforts to give the FCC authority to auction TV spectrum and for the government to split the proceeds with stations. The shift in attention means broadcasters will get time to keep honing their message on spectrum, which they don’t want taken away from them involuntarily, and to potentially reach a compromise with the regulator for legislation that could be more favorable for the industry, the officials said.
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The FCC stepped up outreach to broadcasters, as it seeks authority from Congress to hold an incentive auction (CD March 21 p4). The purchase by AT&T of a major wireless company and its spectrum could give TV stations a way to buttress their case that such legislation shouldn’t pass before a more complete inventory is conducted, industry officials said. Unclear now is how significant the deal will be to how quickly the commission gets the authority it seeks, some said. Broadcasters are still trying to figure out how to respond to the deal, they said. An NAB spokesman declined to comment.
Left unchanged by AT&T/T-Mobile is that many broadcasters want to hang on to their spectrum, rather than voluntarily give it up for auction, no matter what cut of proceeds they'd get, station-group executives and industry lawyers said. “There might be a few people that figure out they can make more selling out of TV” than by remaining in business, said President Robert Prather of Gray, which runs 43 stations. “But I don’t think it will go farther than that.” And he doesn’t “see Congress making TV stations sell."
Allbritton Communications is “hopeful that the Congress steps back, because of this” deal or because of “any other event and takes a holistic view of spectrum,” said General Counsel Jerald Fritz. The Hill should look not just as commercial spectrum, but at frequencies used by all, “before it makes any precipitous moves,” said Fritz. “We hope that everybody would take a step back and consider all the options” and “get a full vision of all the spectrum options, and I don’t think that they've done that,” he added.
AT&T/T-Mobile shows that “the so-called spectrum shortage need not be resolved on the backs of broadcasters and time can be taken to complete an inventory,” said lawyer Robert Rini of Rini Coran, which represents TV stations. The commission has said its online spectrum dashboard and other initiatives give it a full sense of who’s using what radio waves. “The absence of incentive auctions, which may not now be authorized by Congress, helps promote other goals of the FCC,” Rini said. That includes “leaving more spectrum for TV that will benefit minorities and women, helping further media diversity,” he said.
The deal doesn’t put to rest concerns of wireless and other industries that there’s not enough spectrum available for mobile broadband devices, no matter how misguided broadcasters think that view is, said a lawyer with TV station clients who doesn’t think there’s a spectrum shortage. Foes of AT&T/T-Mobile could use the transaction as a way to “press harder for a clear timeframe for reallocation of the broadcast spectrum as a way to blunt AT&T’s” expanding reach, said the attorney. “Those who believe there really is a ‘looming spectrum crisis’ aren’t going to believe that any efficiencies of the merger will solve it."
AT&T/T-Mobile means incentive auction legislation won’t pass this year, unless broadcasters and the FCC put together a compromise and take it to members of Congress for it to be codified in a bill, said an attorney who represents TV stations. “It does suggest that compromise legislation is the only legislation that is likely to move. And I think that’s where the commission was heading anyway.” Until the commission releases a model of how packing channels closer together will affect their service areas, the lawyer predicted, “I don’t think anyone is going to say ‘yes’ to anything.”