LPTV Caught in 'Catch 22'
The FCC proposal to reserve a vacant band for unlicensed use and displace many low-power TV stations after the incentive auction reverses decades of the commission's own policies, said a reply brief from LPTV broadcasters Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia,…
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Mako Communications and Word of God filed Wednesday. It said LPTV broadcasters are caught in a “Catch-22” between the FCC's argument that a delayed auction will cause irreparable harm to the public interest and its claim that since LPTV broadcasters can't know they'll be displaced, no stay should be granted. The commission “inexplicably asserts that petitioners are at the same time too early and too late to seek interim relief from this Court,” the LPTV broadcasters said in a filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. "The FCC cannot have it both ways; its position is wrong and unsubstantiated.” The FCC argued in its brief opposing the requested stay that the auction is too close to pause without causing harm to many other broadcasters (see 1603150069).