The LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition is warning members some of their facilities may be displaced and/or go dark within a year based on new details of the FCC repack plan. The Commission recently released more data about the repack schedule, Inside Towers reported.
LPTV Coalition Director Mike Gravino says the scheduled 39-month timeframe is “illusory at best” for low-power stations in “Phase Zero,” due to an “immediate clearing of licensed LPTV and TV translators in 30 TV DMAs in 19 states.” That can happen as soon as Ericsson can deliver 600 MHz chips and equipment needed by T-Mobile and others, according to Gravino in his newsletter to members.
He explains Phase Zero TV DMA are where the agency had no primary stations to displace from TV Channels 38-50, and LPTV and TV translators were the only ones in that portion of the auctioned band. “The way we found these is that all other TV DMA had stations which were giving new channel assignments. When we saw these 30 without them, we started to work the problem and found, and confirmed with the FCC, that this is reality,” Gravino writes.
Since the LPTV and translator displacement filing window is not until after the actual displacement could start, “your one year” of being allowed to go dark “will be butting up right against any deadline,” he cautions.
May 3, 2017
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