The Low-Power Television Spectrum Rights Coalition is asking the FCC to conduct economic impact analysis of the effect of the TV channel repack on displaced LPTVs and TV translators. The point is to scrutinize “the hard dollar costs of channel relocations to our industry,” writes Coalition Director Mike Gravino in a letter to the Commission.
The need is acute now that there are two bills in Congress, which, if passed, would make up the shortfall in the $1.75 billion repack reimbursement fund. The House’s Viewer Protection Act of 2017 includes potential funds for LPTV and TV translators while the Senate’s Viewer and Listener Protection Act of 2017 includes money for FM, but not LPTV and translators.
“With the FCC being asked to weigh in on these bills, it is incumbent on the FCC to provide economic impact analyses to Congress,” writes Gravino. LPTV and translators operating on their current channels must shut down if notified that they will cause interference to new wireless operations. While the Commission will open a limited window for displaced LPTV and translators to apply to operate on new channels, potentially 4,000 may need to go off-air before that happens in early 2018, estimates the LPTV Spectrum Coalition.
“Hundreds” of rural LPTV and TV translators are being displaced now, according to Gravino; T-Mobile has offered to pick-up the costs for those that must move twice, to accommodate the carrier’s aggressive broadband deployment schedule in the 600 MHz band. Displaced LPTVs and TV translators can file applications to access other channels in the repacked TV band or enter into channel-sharing arrangements in a special FCC Media Bureau window in November; but some may need to move before that.
And “while T-Mobile is picking up the costs of the second move, it ain’t paying licensees to move in the next 100 days or so,” writes Gravino in a newsletter to members. T-Mobile sent letters to certain LPTVs and TV translators, telling them when to vacate their spectrum, Inside Towers reported.
The House and Senate members deciding on whether to give any funding to LPTV and TV translators are “completely in the dark as to the actual and projected impacts from all of this,” according to Gravino, who adds the coalition is supplying projections to both committees, but needs actual cost data from affected stations.
July 31, 2017
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