Divided Congress Gives Broadcasters a Check Against Harm, Smith Says
A divided Congress can help broadcasters avoid harmful legislation or regulation by slowing down consideration of issues detrimental to the industry, NAB President Gordon Smith said Thursday. “When it comes to broadcast issues, it is helpful to us, to have an extra check and balance between the chambers” so issues are “fully considered,” he said. That’s because decisions can have “lasting and damaging consequences,” Smith said in response to our question on C-SPAN.
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Yet Smith said he’s “deeply” concerned between the conflicting goals of the FCC in seeking congressional authorization to auction TV spectrum for wireless broadband and split the proceeds of the so-called mobile futures auction with broadcasters on the one hand, and the goal of many in Congress to cut the deficit. “I hear the FCC saying there will be a market” for the spectrum and that “Congress will allocate to broadcasters money to go out of business or to be repackaged” via channel changes, if they agree to participate in the auction, Smith said. He was interviewed on The Communicators show, to be shown Saturday and Monday on the cable network
"My concern as a former legislator is that when you stack up these issues,” with some estimating the auction could raise $30 billion or more, in a pay-as-you-go budget environment, members of Congress have wanted to use money from previous spectrum auctions to offset the costs of other legislation, Smith said. “When you put billions on the table, there are a lot of claimants. How will broadcasters fare? I've said to volunteers who may want to volunteer, make sure the check clears before you let go of your spectrum."
"We don’t want to lose the future of mobile television” by having TV channels changed by the commission when other broadcasters in a market agree to sell their spectrum in the mobile futures auction, sought by the National Broadband Plan, to repack the remaining outlets, Smith said. “If you're repackaged into an inferior band or crowded with other channels, you lose those innovations” from the 2009 full-power broadcaster switch to digital, he said. “You lose what was promised” by Congress when the agency reclaimed about a third of TV stations’ spectrum in the digital transition, he said. “They're interested in keeping voluntary voluntary,” Smith said of legislators’ hopes for spectrum reallocation and repacking: “Without respect of Republican or Democratic registration."
"History shows that some of our worst decisions are when you have one-party domination,” costing “us a great amount of money” and sometimes producing “unintended consequences,” Smith said. Having a divided government “gives you the ability to fully vet ideas -- it does slow down the process,” he added. “As frustrating as it is to watch on C-SPAN sometimes -- Republicans and Democrats don’t seem to be able to agree on the time of day -- it still produces a better result.” A divided government also means Smith can’t play partisan politics to get what he wants done on Capitol Hill, he also noted.
Divided government gives you “procedural hurdles” to use to “stop bad things,” Smith said. For broadcasters, “our issues are not Republican and Democrat” and “I find friends on both sides of the aisle,” he said. That’s especially true since Smith now can lobby on the Hill, after a two-year ban expired recently, he said. Smith was a GOP senator from Oregon for two terms until January 2009.
"I am nervous they may have a tendency to go beyond what’s allowed under statute, but that’s why we have a judiciary” Smith said of the FCC. He cited its censuring of Comcast for slowing down certain broadband content, a move overturned last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “But my hope is that the FCC will act in accordance with what they've already said publicly,” that on retransmission consent, the agency can’t require binding arbitration when talks for a new carriage contact break down. Commissioners voted Thursday on a retrans rulemaking notice. (See separate story in this issue.)
The biggest issues on the Hill for broadcasters, “of constant concern in Congress,” are spectrum allocation, retrans and the specter of having to pay musicians and their labels royalties when their songs are played on terrestrial radio, Smith said. “We don’t want to break radio in trying to resolve this,” he said of performance royalties. Asked if the Internet has “broken” TV, he said no, “because of retransmission consent, just as cable and satellite argued for payment for their produced content, we ask for the same consideration.”