Low Power Television/Class A TV

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Yesterday was a busy day for the TV incentive auction, where the FCC is attempting to clear portions of the TV band by paying TV stations to surrender their licenses, and repurpose the cleared spectrum for wireless broadband users. As we wrote earlier this week, Stage 3 of the Forward Auction started yesterday, where wireless companies would have had to come up with over $42 billion dollars to meet the costs of clearing the TV band. The Forward Auction closed after one round of bidding with bids totaling $19,676,240,520. Thus, we are on to Stage 4, with the FCC expected to attempt to clear 84 MHz of TV spectrum instead of the 108 MHz target in the just concluded Stage 3. The Reverse Auction in Stage 4 is expected to commence on Tuesday, December 13, but look for confirmation later this week.

At the same time, there are two other bits of auction related news – both dealing with stations eligible for the auction. In the first, the US Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of Walker Broadcasting Company, a company that had an authorization for a new TV station, but had not finished construction and licensing of that station in time for inclusion in the auction. Had it been included in the auction, the company could have attempted to sell its license in the auction and, if its station was not one purchased in the auction for surrender, the FCC would have had to find a new channel on which the station could operate after the auction. Instead, the Court upheld the FCC’s ruling that the station had not met the required construction deadlines, and therefore did not qualify to be included in the auction or for post-auction protection.
Continue Reading Incentive Auction News: Stage 3 Forward Auction Closes After One Round, Stage 4 to Commence Next Week; GAO Issues Report on Effects on LPTV; Court Dismisses Appeal of TV Station Exclusion from Auction

The FCC yesterday issued a Public Notice reminding all TV broadcasters (full-power, LPTV, translator and Class A stations, both commercial and noncommercial, if they have digital operations) that they must, by December 1, file a report as to whether or not they provide ancillary and supplementary services through their broadcast spectrum. If…

Each quarter, my partner David O’Connor and I update a list of the legal and regulatory issues facing TV broadcasters. That list of issues is published by TVNewsCheck and is available on their website, here. This update was published today, and provides a summary of the status of legal and regulatory issues ranging…

Right as everyone was set to enjoy the last glimmer of summer over the long weekend, the FCC issued its Report and Order on the regulatory fees for 2016.  The FCC adopted all the fees for broadcast stations as proposed in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (about which we wrote about here) with some…

There are so many legal issues that facing broadcasters that it is sometimes difficult to keep up with them all. This Blog and many other activities that those at my firm engage in are meant to help our clients and other broadcasters keep up to date on all of the many regulatory challenges with which…

The only significant legal issues that were potentially standing in the way of the broadcast incentive auction are slowly being removed. So far this week, the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC has denied two requests for stays of the commencement of the reverse auction, scheduled to begin on March 29 with the submission of commitments to accept the FCC’s payout offers by stations interested in surrendering their channels to the FCC or moving from UHF to VHF channels. The Court denied one stay request outright, but it did note that another applicant, Latina Broadcasters, had made a showing sufficient for the Court to order some relief for that applicant. The Court ordered that the licensee be allowed to participate in the incentive auction on a provisional basis – presumably meaning that they can bid but, if their appeal of being thrown out of the auction is denied, they would not get the benefit of any payments that would otherwise have gone their way from any surrender of their license in the auction.  (See our article here about previous actions in this case)

The FCC has now issued a statement that the inclusion of Latina in the auction will not delay the March 29 deadline for auction participants to make their binding commitments about auction participation. A letter to the Court, referenced in the FCC’s statement, contains a cryptic statement that “a short delay would result from Latina’s inclusion in the auction,” perhaps indicating that other aspects of the auction may be delayed somewhat, but the FCC’s notice makes clear that the March 29 deadline will hold. This is of course subject to Court action on the final unresolved request for stay of the auction – a request by Videohouse, Inc., another LPTV licensee claiming that it should have been treated as a Class A station and included in the auction. The Court actions thus far let the FCC proceed with the auction, and the Commission has gone ahead with advancing the auction process itself, sending out letters to all auction applicants including the SecureID tokens necessary for applicants to participate in the auction itself.
Continue Reading Incentive Auction Moves Forward – Two Requests for Stay Denied and SecureID Tokens Distributed to Reverse Auction Participants

The FCC yesterday released a Public Notice dealing with the upcoming March 29 commitment deadline for TV broadcasters who filed their applications back in January indicating a possible intent to participate in the incentive auction to surrender their TV channel so that the FCC can use it to repack the TV band to free spectrum to sell to wireless broadband users. In the Public Notice, the Commission made clear that station’s actual commitments to accept the FCC’s initial offers to give up their spectrum (either by abandoning their channel entirely by going out of business or sharing with a channel with another broadcaster, or by moving from a UHF to a VHF channel) will need to be filed between 10AM on March 28 and 6 PM (Eastern Time) on March 29. The January applications said that a broadcaster might be interested in giving up its current channel – filings made before the upcoming March 29 deadline make that commitment binding.

Yesterday’s notice announced that the FCC will be making available its “Initial Commitment Module” of the Incentive Auction software system at 10 AM on March 24 during a “preview period” for review by TV broadcasters. That is the piece of software on which the broadcaster makes its commitment to participate in the auction at the FCC’s initial offering price. Starting on Monday, February 29, the FCC will be making available an online tutorial to allow broadcasters to familiarize themselves with how the software will work. In addition, today the FCC announced that it will hold a workshop for broadcasters on March 11, starting at 10 AM Eastern Time, providing information on how to make these commitments.  These actions come while the FCC battles with some LPTV stations claiming that they should have been considered Class A TV stations and included in the auction – a legal battle that seems to be the last potential legal speedbump that could in any way derail the upcoming auction.
Continue Reading FCC Announces Previews for TV Broadcasters of Incentive Auction Initial Commitment Software; Denies Auction Stay Request from LPTV Applicant

It’s that time of the year when we need to dust off the crystal ball and make predictions about the legal issues that will impact the business of broadcasters in 2016.  While we try to look ahead to identify the issues that are on the agenda of the FCC and other government agencies, there are always surprises as the regulators come up with issues that we did not anticipate. With this being an election year, issues may arise as regulators look to make a political point, or as Commissioners look to establish a legacy before the end of their terms in office.  And you can count on there being issues that arise that were unanticipated at the beginning of the year.

But, we’ll nevertheless give it a try – trying to guess the issues that we will likely be covering this year.  We’ll start today with issues likely to be considered by the FCC, and we’ll write later about issues that may arise on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the maze of government agencies and courts who deal with broadcast issues.  In addition, watch these pages for our calendar of regulatory deadlines for broadcasters in the next few days.

So here are some issues that are on the table at the FCC.  While the TV incentive auction may well suck up much of the attention, especially in the first half of the year, there are many other issues to consider.  We’ll start below with issues affecting all stations, and then move on to TV and radio issues in separate sections below. 
Continue Reading What Washington Has in Store for Broadcasters in 2016 – Looking at the Legal Issues that the FCC Will Be Considering in the New Year

The road to the incentive auction’s anticipated start in March continues to be paved. With broadcasters who are intending to participate in the auction needing to file their initial Form 177 applications expressing that intent by January 12 (see our article here), the FCC has published instructions for completing the FCC Form 177 applications, providing an almost line-by-line explanation of the requirements for filing of the forms. These forms are to be filed by every licensee who is thinking about possibly offering their station up for any sort of compensation in the auction, whether that compensation is a total buy-out of their spectrum, or whether it is merely compensation for moving from a UHF channel to a digitally-less-desirable VHF channel. The full instructions for the form are available here and, as we wrote here, you can find a view of the form itself here (with the actual form not to be available until the window for filing that form opens on December 8).

To further explain the process, the FCC will be conducting a webinar on the reverse auction process on December 8 at 1 PM Eastern Time. Information and an agenda for the webinar were released yesterday, and can be found here. The webinar looks to be focusing on the nuts and bolts of the completion of the Form 177, a general overview of the auction process, the specific information sought by the Form including the filing of any channel sharing agreements, and the options for offering your station for buyout or move to VHF in the auction. The Public Notice also provides links to register for the auction and the web page from which the stream will originate (and at which it will be archived).
Continue Reading No Holidays for the Incentive Auction – Instructions and a Webinar for Broadcasters Who Plan to Enter the Auction and Disputes Over Repacking and LPTV