Media Bureau Keeps LPTV In Mind As It Seeks Repacking
The FCC Media Bureau is keeping low-power TV stations in mind as the commission continues seeking congressional authority to voluntarily auction TV spectrum and share proceeds with licensees, bureau officials said during a Q-and-A Monday. Some current proposals would let the commission hold an auction of the spectrum of full-power stations and Class A outlets, but not LPTV stations, an official noted at an FCBA event. The bureau’s proceedings on retransmission consent and the quadrennial review of media ownership rules, last week’s program access order against Cablevision and Madison Square Garden LP and the annual survey of cable rates were other subjects industry lawyers asked about. Few definitive answers on pending proceedings were given.
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In repacking TV stations to clear contiguous chunks of spectrum for other uses, which the agency wants to do as part of a voluntary incentive auction, the bureau wants to look at ways for at least some LPTVs to continue to exist, a staffer said. But LPTV is a secondary service, another bureau official said, meaning it has fewer protections than full-power broadcasters. Staffers said not all LPTV stations may be able to stay on-air after repacking in some markets. LPTV executives last week visited the commission and legislators’ offices, contending the secondary status of the stations doesn’t preclude letting them take part in an incentive auction, which CTIA disagreed with (CD Sept 22 p8).
There appear to be fewer minority-owned LPTV stations than some lawyers and executives have asserted, a bureau official said in response to an attendee’s stipulation that many are owned by people of color. LPTV backers have pointed to the stations’ diversity, and before the Community Broadcasters Association became defunct in 2009, it occasionally surveyed members on ownership status, the official noted. And officials did note that some LPTVs are minority owned, and the bureau is keeping that in mind. Not all low-power stations have responded to the commission’s data collection efforts to definitively address the issue, an official said. Front-office bureau staff spoke on a not-for-attribution basis at a brown-bag lunch organized by the FCBA Mass Media Committee and the Video Programming and Video Distribution Committee.
The bureau won’t likely break up the proceeding into retrans so it can act on a piecemeal basis, and instead seems more likely to issue one order in the rulemaking proceeding, a bureau official said, noting no decision has been made. Not much thought has been given to whether to break up the proceeding into various subjects, but anyone who wants that to happen can share their rationale with the bureau, the staffer said. The bureau continues its work on the quadrennial review, the staffer also said, without predicting when a rulemaking notice will be issued.
Steve Waldman’s “swan song with the agency” will come Oct. 3 at an FCC field hearing in Phoenix (CD Sept 26 p17) on his report that was done under the auspices of Chairman Julius Genachowski about the future of the media industry, a bureau official said. That will be Waldman’s last week at the commission, the official said. Waldman confirmed to us that he’s leaving then. Genachowski and Waldman will talk about how the commission is implementing the recommendations in the report, a bureau official said. The staffer declined to say how the report will be implemented. Recommendations included the termination of the broadcast localism proceeding and phasing out stations’ paper filings.
There’s still utility in measuring cable operators’ rates each year, an official said about its annual survey. The inclusion in recent years’ questionnaires to operators for them to report the cost of their most widely purchased tier of service was an attempt to better measure what consumers are being charged, the official said. Another official defended the bureau’s authority to act on delegated authority, without seeking a commissioner vote, in granting part of program access complaints by AT&T and Verizon against Cablevision and its former MSG cable programming business (CD Sept 23 p5).