Keep Communities Served by Public Broadcasting After Auction, APTS and PBS Say
The FCC should take more steps to ensure communities continue to be served by public broadcasting after the spectrum incentive auction and repacking process, said the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) staff, collectively PTV,…
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in an ex parte notice posted at the commission Wednesday in docket 14-252. PTV met with commission staff Wednesday to discuss noncommercial educational (NCE) broadcasters, the auction and repack, PTV said. PTV urged the commission to grant the petition for reconsideration filed Sept. 15 and to revise its incentive auction rules to ensure at least one NCE reserved channel remains in each community after the auction. The petition presents an auction design that allows broadcasters to volunteer to participate and reserves space for new entrants in case an unserved area develops in the process, PTV said. The commission also should adopt a selection priority for displacement applications of translators that NCE licensees operate, it said. PTV also encouraged the commission to provide a selection priority for NCE translators where mutually exclusive displacement applications are filed. The commission shouldn't assign TV stations in the repurposed 600 MHz band during the repacking process, PTV said. "Placing television stations in the 600 MHz band risks creating many of the same challenges faced with channel 51 for years following the digital transition, but magnified and significantly more complicated due to the combined impact of interrelated geography, frequency, and power level variables," PTV said. A contiguous TV broadcast band should be maintained because of challenges with a repacking plan that combines broadcast and wireless services in the band, PTV said.