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The FCC today announced that, effective October 27, noncommercial FM stations need no longer protect Channel 6 analog television channels.  The lower end of the FM band, which is reserved for noncommercial educational FM broadcasting, is immediately adjacent to TV Channel 6.  As most television stations abandoned Channel 6 in June when the digital television transition occurred, noncommercial stations had been protecting stations that were no longer there.  However, as we wrote here, the FCC wanted to deal with noncommercial licensees that were trying to jump the gun by filing applications contingent on the disappearance of the Channel 6 station even before the analog television stations had stopped operating.  To give all noncommercial FM stations an equal opportunity to take advantage of the clearing of Channel 6 in most television markets, the Commission set this uniform date for taking advantage of this change in television station operations.  Of course, noncommercial FM stations need to protect the handful of television stations that continue to operate digitally on Channel 6.  Today's public notice notes that noncommercial FM applications trying to take advantage of the fact that Channel 6 has been vacated in their market by filing an application before the October 27 date will be dismissed unless they had specific unconditional permission of the Channel 6 station.

Note that while the FCC has made the process equal for all noncommercial FM stations, there are questions about whether an unfair advantage may have been given to some LPTV stations in the recent LPTV filing window, where channel 6 applications were not prohibited (see our post here).  Some noncommercial broadcasters were concerned that some of these LPTV applicants could take advantage of the vacating of Channel 6 in their market by filing an application for a new LPTV station that could preclude the filing of an FM application once the window announced in this public notice opened.  To some extent, this may not be a major issue, as the LPTV window for applications for major markets does not open until January.  But we will see if this concern actually resulted in any issues in more rural areas as the LPTV applications that have already been filed in these areas are processed in coming months.  But for NCE FM stations that were precluded from filing for upgrades by a Channel 6 TV station that disappeared after the digital transition, the wait for filing opportunities will soon be over.

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Two weeks ago, we wrote about the FCC’s proposal for the auction of the 700 MHz band – the portions of the spectrum that will be reclaimed from television operators after the digital transition.  These channels will be used to provide some form of wireless broadband service. The Commission made its decision on the use of this spectrum last week, reserving at least some of the spectrum for “open access” uses – where the provider will not be able to restrict the devices that can access the network, nor limit or block services that run on the network, as long as the devices and services do not cause damage to the network.  In theory, this will encourage the creation of numerous new devices and services to capitalize on the open wireless network being provided.  While the Commission has not released the full test of this decision yet, a memo from our firm, describing some of the decisions announced at the FCC open meeting and in the subsequent public notice, can be found here.

Whether the provisions that the Commission adopted will be sufficient to entice some of the Internet “content” companies, like Google, to bid, remains to be seen. But this “beachfront spectrum” will no doubt introduce some exciting new uses as it begins to come into operation in the next few years - providing more people more wireless access to mobile content - and more competition to those traditional wireless industries that many consumers have forgotten are both wireless and mobile - those provided by traditional broadcasters. 

In fact, that point was made yesterday by Jeff Smulyan, President of Emmis Communications, on a panel about the future of broadcasting at the Texas Association of Broadcasters meeting in Austin, Texas.  There, he stated his belief that broadcasters - particularly radio broadcasters - had to do more to bring back the cachet back to the broadcast industry - making the point that many young people do not realize that radio is a mobile wireless service!  With the publicity about more and more wireless services to wireless devices like cell phones and PDAs, hype that will only grow as the 700 MHz spectrum is auctioned, reminding consumers about the reach and delivery of the broadcast services will become even more important. 

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As we have written, here and here, the FCC recently commenced a proceeding to determine if it should adopt rules to require analog cable systems to carry digital television stations after the digital television conversion is complete in 2009.  The proceeding is also to determine what a cable system must do to ensure that there is no material degradation in the signal of a digital television station which is being retransmitted.  Comments in this proceeding are due on July 16.  For more information about the questions being asked in this proceeding, our firm has just released a memo summarizing the issues, which can be found here.

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