Broadcast

The FCC should reclaim TV broadcasters’ spectrum by 2020, Sanford Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson wrote investors. The agency should stay out of retransmission consent negotiations between stations and pay-TV distributors and relax ownership rules, he said. For emergencies, battery-operated radios or voicemail blasts to landline phones will suffice in a post-TV spectrum world, he said. For now, the government should let the retransmission consent process play out on its own, he said. “If the threat of a local station signal blackout gets cable MSOs to the negotiating table, don’t stand in the way of business negotiations,” he said. “After that, change the station ownership rules to allow a national roll-up of TV stations above the 39 percent cap and allow the cross-ownership of stations and newspapers,” Nathanson said. Deregulating ownership limits would prompt a flurry of transactions that “will make the local broadcast industry stronger during this time of change,” he said. It would also give stations more leverage in carriage negotiations with cable operators and the major networks, he said.