NAB Sees ‘Devastating’ Impact to Mobile DTV From Incentive Auction

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan would remove Channels 31-51 from use by TV stations, leaving them with 29 channels, including 17 in the UHF band, NAB’s calculations of the plan’s impact show (http://xrl.us/bk253a). That means 672 full-power TV stations, 39 percent of all such stations in the U.S., would need to change channels, the association said. VHF, comprising 41 percent of all available channels post-repacking in the group’s estimation, is less suited for mobile DTV because cellphones and other handheld devices would need large antennas to pick up the service (CD June 2 p7). “It’s over,” Smith said in response to our question about what the auction would mean for the new service. “You just look at the facts of the physics and mobile becomes, from a broadcast signal, next to impossible.” Other NAB officials offered predictions that were less catastrophic, but all agreed the impact would be sizeable.

The commission needs to release a model showing what stations’ contours would look like, Smith said. “Many of the facts -- the modeling that we think members of Congress ought to have, modeling which we ought to have as well, has simply been withheld from us,” he told reporters. “And we think that before votes are taken, decisions are made ... those facts ought to be known and fully considered.” The NAB put forth its study now of a plan released in March 2010 by the FCC because “time is of the essence for us to raise these issues,” with spectrum possibly being part of a debt ceiling deal, Smith told us. “A lot of this has been withheld.” An FCC spokesman had no comment on the alleged withholding of the model. The Office of Engineering and Technology had been working on the model, and some broadcasters have thought the commission didn’t want to release it until after the incentive auction legislation passed (CD May 5 p7).

Executives of groups seeking an auction said NAB’s fears are overblown, and the FCC spokesman said the association’s own models on repacking make wrong assumptions. Broadcasters have been technologically able to provide mobile DTV “for years,” but haven’t built out that capacity, said President Fred Campbell of the Wireless Communications Association: “Mobile broadband services are here today and their need for spectrum is now.” NAB is using “scare tactics,” Vice President Christopher Guttman-McCabe of CTIA said. “The NAB study sets up and knocks down a purely fictional straw man,” said Senior Vice President Michael Petricone of CEA. “The study presumes an unrealistic scenario in which every single existing TV station continues to operate over-the-air. However in the event of incentive spectrum auctions, it is highly likely numerous stations will capitalize on their spectrum assets by exiting the business or sharing resources.” Smith is for “freedom” and “if there are broadcasters who want to go out of business, they should be at liberty to volunteer,” he told us. The NAB doesn’t have a threshold for what amount of repurposing wouldn’t harm the industry, he said. The broadband plan seeks 120 MHz, and a bill recently approved by the Senate Commerce Committee (S-911) seeks 84 MHz.

As many as 1,200 full-power stations would have to at least briefly turn off transmissions to change channels, and some might be off-air for a few weeks, NAB Vice President Bruce Franca told reporters. “The suggestion that the broadband plan affects only a few TV stations is simply wrong,” he said. “This impact is industrywide and certainly includes the major network stations” and PBS affiliates on Channels 31-51 that NAB thinks would need to move. “Many stations will not have a new channel to operate on,” because there wouldn’t be enough channels in major markets, he said. “There also would be serious shortfalls all along the Canadian border.” The NAB estimated that 39 percent of stations in the top-10 markets would have no channel post-repacking.

"NAB’s study misses the fact that an incentive auction will be market-driven and voluntary,” the FCC spokesman said. “Our proposal will not shut down hundreds of stations -- it will open up massive innovation and investment. It has twin benefits: It will help broadcasters interested in participating and unleash much needed spectrum -- a key ingredient to meeting the demands of the mobile revolution. Rather then engage in scare tactics, we urge NAB to work with us to achieve our shared legislative objectives to maintain a strong over-the-air broadcasting service."

The effects on mobile DTV of the incentive auction will be profound, NAB executives agreed. “If you look at the number of stations that have been lost in the top markets, you can see that this is a devastating impact on the ability to provide mobile services,” Franca said in response to our question. “Half the TV stations go off the air in New York City. Those that remain, some will be on stations that will be very difficult to provide mobile DTV services, because they will be in lower channels where the antennas have to be bigger. So it’s hard to work on a small” handheld device, he said. UHF “is the best spectrum” for mobile broadcasts, which is why carriers want it for broadband, Franca added.

NAB Executive Vice President Chris Ornelas later clarified to us that Smith didn’t mean that the broadband plan spells doom for mobile DTV. “It certainly presents real challenges,” Ornelas said. Because less spectrum would be available for TV, “the size of the pie becomes smaller and smaller,” he added. “And particularly in a channel-sharing context, you just don’t have enough” frequencies “to do innovative services,” he said. “We can be part of the solution in ways other than relinquishing our spectrum.”