The FCC isn’t eyeing AM and FM spectrum as it evaluates repurposing TV and other radio waves for mobile broadband -- and that’s unlikely to change -- our informal survey of a dozen industry and commission officials found. Total terrestrial radio spectrum consists of about 21 MHz nationwide, engineers said, versus the hundreds of megahertz the wireless industry wants and government is said to be looking for (CD Nov 2 p1). A far higher portion of Americans listen to radio over-the-air than get TV terrestrially, making it even less politically palatable or technically feasible to repurpose radio than TV, said the engineers, executives and lawyers we surveyed.
More consumers will buy in-car radios and mobile devices that can get HD Radio in the coming years, iBiquity Digital CEO Bob Struble said. Unit sales doubled in fiscal 2009, and 1.5 million in total have been shipped, he said Monday in an interview. Struble didn’t provide dollar figures about the privately held licensor of digital radio technology to broadcasters and consumer electronics manufacturers.
An agreement before the FCC for many FM radio stations to significantly increase their digital HD Radio power (CD Nov 6 p6) seems to have wide industry support, judging from interviews with five broadcasting officials. The deal, between National Public Radio and HD Radio developer iBiquity Digital, falls short of the 900 percent power increase sought by 16 radio broadcasters. By including ways to further increase power and paving the way for approval of the levels by the Media Bureau, the deal is a good step and it provides some flexibility, some of those parties said. A group representing low-power FM stations worries about interference to all in the band.
The licensor of HD Radio gear and National Public Radio (NPR) cemented a compromise they're asking the FCC to adopt as rules so commercial and non-commercial FM stations can boost digital power levels. As expected (CD Oct 15 p7), the agreement submitted to the commission Thursday would let stations transmit in digital at up to 4 percent of their maximum analog levels. That’s an increase of 300 percent and a boost by up to 6 dB to -14 dBc.
An FCC decision on a request by six movie studios to use HDTV encryption to stream films to cable- and satellite-TV providers before they go on DVD and Blu-ray seems closer, said numerous commission and industry officials. The Media Bureau especially has been giving the May 2008 waiver request by MPAA considerable attention in recent weeks, they said. Most commissioners aren’t heavily involved in the issue, they said, but others said some offices are taking an interest in it. Supporters and opponents of the request agree the commission has enough information to make a decision (CD Oct 2 p8).
Panelists at the last of this week’s batch of media ownership workshops offered questions, proposals and measurements for the FCC to consider as it reviews the rules in 2010. President David Barrett of Hearst Television again floated a proposal for the commission to take into account several types of media when deciding whether to let TV stations combine. General Counsel George Mahoney of Media General suggested that the commission take into account the time stations devote to news coverage in measuring broadcast outputs. Two representatives of minority organizations said the FCC should keep diversity in mind.
Top FCC staffers asked about how the commission should take account of the Internet, attribution of radio and TV station ownership and quality of programming in its coming media ownership review. Wide-ranging questions at a commission workshop Tuesday on ownership rules -- the second of three this week (CD Nov 3 p3) -- didn’t always yield many concrete answers, because some questions posed have no straightforward solutions, panelists’ responses suggested. High-quality news should be a goal of the ownership review, which Congress has required the FCC to do in 2010, speakers said.
Broadcasters and their trade groups probably will counter a CEA-financed study of spectrum valuations with research of their own, industry executives said. There’s no bigger business or regulatory issue for TV stations than the prospect of reuse of broadcast spectrum, said several of the dozen-plus industry officials we surveyed at companies that own more than 150 stations.
FCC evaluation of how to best use TV and other spectrum for broadband seems mainly centered so far around work by staffers of the Omnibus Broadband Initiative (OBI), according to multiple commission and industry officials. A public notice from the broadband initiative on the subject is a possible way for the OBI staffers to formally tee up the issue for consideration, they said. But a commission spokesman said there are many ways for the regulator to address the issue.
Compliance with ex parte rules seems to vary, FCC staff reviewing the issue have found, a commission official told a workshop Wednesday on the subject (CD Oct 23 p11). The 1997 rules state filers must “adequately summarize the substance of the representation and don’t merely list the subjects discussed,” said Joel Kaufman, associate general counsel.