Chairman Wheeler Offers Noncommercial TV Outreach

Apparently, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler told representatives of noncommercial TV stations in a meeting June 22 that he would be willing to do some personal outreach to stations about the options for participating in the broadcast incentive auction while remaining in the businesses. The meeting followed the FCC's rejection of petitions to reconsider parts of the auction framework. That included a request by CPB, PBS and the Association of Public Television Stations that the FCC make sure that a noncommercial channel be reserved in every market after the post auction station repack, whether or not the only noncom in a market decided to give up its spectrum in the auction.

Apparently, reserving the channel would unnecessarily complicate the auction and reduce flexibility, particularly given that there were the other options the chairman is apparently willing to pitch. Those include giving up spectrum but striking a sharing deal with another station, in which case the noncom half of the channel would be a noncommercial license, and the broadcaster would get the same payout as though they had given up the spectrum and exited the business, or giving up UHF spectrum to move to a VHF channel, which would leave them in the business, plus give them a payout, though less than if they were exiting altogether.