FCC’s Bill Lake to Take Questions on LPTV at NAB
Feb 17, 2014, 11:44 AM EST
by Frank Beacham
TVNewscheck.com
http://www.tvnewscheck.com/playout/2014/02/fccs-bill-lake-to-take-questions-on-lptv-at-nab/
The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition, whose membership includes over 100
independent LPTV licensees which control more than 620 FCC broadcast
licenses and construction permits in 31 states, has been struggling to
get an FCC “Learn” session regarding the upcoming spectrum auctions.
LPTV1The group’s attempts have been unsuccessful, though every other
interest group affected by the auction has gotten such a session.
Coalition director Mike Gravino said his group has been devastated by
the long two-year auction design process. He noted there will be another
18 months until the auction actually happens. His group needs to get
their concerns on the record, he said.
To do so, his coalition is paying for its own industry survey, its own
impact study and now for its own information session at NAB. It will
occur on Monday, April 7, from 10:45 am until 12:15 p.m. in Las Vegas.
For the NAB session—which the group paid the NAB to hold—has scheduled a
one-hour Q&A with FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake.
GravinoGravino said some of the questions to be posed are: Will there be
a future for the 6,000 LPTVs and translators after the auction and
channel repacking? With $1 billion plus in collective relocation costs,
how many will be displaced, forced to the VHF or lose their licenses?
Will female and minority owners survive? Will 175 plus programming
networks still have national distribution?
Other questions will include: How does the Spectrum Act protect LPTV?
Will the LPTV “right of displacement” limit unlicensed spectrum users?
Is expanding the 1999 Digital Data Services Act the future of LPTV? How
could LPTV actually save the auction from failing?
“The real coup for us is getting Bill Lake there,” Gravino said. “I
tried to do this with Genochowski, I tried to do it with Clyburn and I
tried with Wheeler. I finally said enough is enough, we are going to do
our own at NAB.”
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