EOBC Offers FCC 1 Percent Solution

Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition has told the Federal Communications Commission that its plan to drop its offering prices to stations in the reverse broadcast incentive auction by 5 percent in each of the initial rounds, is a bad idea any way you look at it, and one that could "destroy" broadcasters ability to get important information to help them decide what to do.

There are many options, including bidding, dropping out, and changing their election -- say from selling out to sharing or moving to a lower channel assignment. EOBC has suggested 1 percent drops is better for all concerned, and made that point in a filing to the FCC on June 29 in which it said a 5 percent drop would result in "inefficient outcomes, compromise the ability of bidders to make rational decisions about participation, and likely hinder the ability of broadcasters to elect the option to move to VHF." EOBC says that, by contrast, its proposal to drop prices by only 1 percent per round would "simplify the bidding process, increase opportunities for outcome discovery, result in more exact exit values, and allow bidders to prepare in advance, with full knowledge of the prices that will be offered in each round.” EOBC concedes that the lesser decrements (the opposite of "increments") would extend the auction "by a couple of weeks," but said that seemed a small price to pay for simplicity and efficiency of the actual auction process.