Draft LPTV Order at FCC Would Eliminate Analog Tuner Requirement

A draft order at the FCC on the incentive auction’s impact on low-power TV and translators would contain rules allowing LPTV stations to channel share with translators, delaying the deadline for LPTV to transition to digital, and allowing displaced LPTV stations to take advantage of FCC auction software to find new channels, agency officials told us. The item would also eliminate the analog tuner requirement for TVs and set up a new digital-to-digital translator service, an FCC official told us.

The item would also include a Further NPRM on channel sharing between LPTV and full-power stations, officials told us. Although low-power industry officials have said (see 1511270050) the draft order doesn’t do enough for LPTV and translators to mitigate the upheaval of the incentive auction, commissioners are seen as being largely in support of the items in the draft order, an FCC official said.

Though some LPTV industry officials have said extensive channel-sharing options could be an opportunity for displaced LPTV stations, others said the items in the order won’t make much of a difference. If stations can’t find a channel to occupy, it doesn’t really matter if they have more time to transition to digital, one broadcast attorney told us. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and officials in the Media Bureau and the Incentive Auction Task Force have said repeatedly that because the Spectrum Act doesn’t protect LPTV and translators in the incentive auction, their ability to mitigate the impacts is limited. “The Commission has recognized that the auction will potentially displace a significant number of LPTV stations,” said Wheeler in a recent letter to legislators (see 1511170066). “However, in light of Congress's determination not to include LPTV or TV translator stations in the auction or protect them in repacking, we have not systematically analyzed the potential displacement impact on those stations.” The FCC didn’t comment.

The LPTV and translator industries are looking to Congress to protect them from the auction rather than to an FCC order, said National Translator Association President Jim McDonald. Every time these industries approach the commission, they get the same answer, he said. “We’re only doing what the government instructed us to do,” McDonald says FCC officials have told him. That’s an empty excuse, since the FCC advised legislators on the text of the Spectrum Act, McDonald said: “You told Congress what to tell you to do.” The NTA is working with legislators on a bill that would provide some relocation funds for translators and give them priority in new channel assignments, he said. McDonald is also hoping GAO will soon issue a report on the auction's impacts on LPTV and translators, which LPTV industry officials have said could provide ammunition for congressional lobbying efforts.

Extending the deadline for LPTV stations and translators to construct digital facilities by 12 months is helpful to licensees because it will keep them from having to construct facilities twice, said McDonald in an interview. It won’t prevent them from being displaced, he said.

Eliminating the analog tuner requirement won’t hurt the reception of stations that remain analog because many existing devices can receive them, said the Consumer Technology Association in comments in the proceeding. “Due to the product development cycle, virtually all TV stations, except for a small minority of LPTV and TV translator stations, most likely will be digital by the time the first generation of digital-only devices comes to market.”

The draft provision to use repacking software to find homes for displaced licensees is a poor substitute for actually repacking LPTV stations, several broadcast attorneys told us. It may not be a big help for translators, since many of their transmission issues stem from problems receiving a signal rather than broadcasting it, McDonald said.

Though channel sharing among low-power stations and translators could offer a way for some stations or translators to stay on air, the situations where it’s likely to apply are rare, McDonald said. LPTV stations tend to serve niche markets in urban areas where there’s still enough advertising to sustain them, whereas translators largely serve rural areas with small populations. “They use different financial models,” McDonald said.