NAB Won't Push To Up Auction Opening Bids

National Association of Broadcasters General Counsel Rick Kaplan said that the NAB is not supporting an effort to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to jack up the opening bids for stations in 2016’s incentive auction because it is not a high NAB priority and has little chance of succeeding. The NAB is “comfortable” with the FCC’s current formula for calculating the opening bids it will use to entice broadcasters to sell spectrum in a reverse auction so that it can resell it to wireless carriers in a conventional forward auction.

In the “hierarchy” of issues the NAB is working on to protect the interests of all broadcasters -- those who sell as well as those who don’t -- changing the opening bid formula is not high. “It’s important for us to get the entire auction right, not just this one issue,” he said. Among other things, the NAB has to make sure non-selling broadcasters are not harmed in the repacking of the TV band that will follow the auction. What’s more, he said, changing the opening bid formula is probably a lost cause. The FCC has signaled that it’s not going to change it, he said.