NAB, Sinclair Count Ways FCC Auction Methodology Is Wrong

The National Association of Broadcasters and Sinclair have told a federal court that the Federal Communications Commission is bent on ignoring the will of Congress in its rush to reclaim spectrum from TV stations.

"Congress directed the FCC, in repacking broadcasters who retain their spectrum rights in the incentive auction, to ‘make all reasonable efforts to preserve, as of February 22, 2012, the coverage area and population served of each broadcast television licensee, as determined using the methodology described in OET Bulletin.’ Yet the FCC repeatedly treats that unambiguous preservation mandate as an inconvenience to be minimized or ignored in the FCC’s myopic quest to transfer spectrum to wireless companies," they said in reply briefs to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. That was accompanied by a laundry list of problems the broadcasters have with the way the FCC is calculating TV station coverage areas and populations served, as well as the way the FCC defended that decision to the court.