Mr. Smith Goes Off On Washington

A Q&A with National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith. He has his sleeves rolled up for a brawl. On Capitol Hill, the NAB is fighting to keep the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act (STELA) reauthorization bill from being a referendum on retransmission, a draft bill on which the association went along with restrictions on coordinated retransmission only because it was, frankly, the best deal it could get.

In the Supreme Court, broadcasters are trying to keep Aereo from delivering a body blow to their businesses models. At the FCC, they’ve been preparing for a March 31s vote on limiting joint sales agreements (JSAs) and coordinated retransmission, an incentive auction that Smith says could wind up in court if the FCC doesn’t change direction, and what Smith suggests is an FCC bias against his members. Smith said that he would like to see something like the National Broadband Plan for broadcasters, but hopes Chairman Wheeler will adopt a more negotiable mood.

“We’re trying to show [the FCC] that there is a third way that is not just in the interests of broadcasters but in the interests of the American people, specifically minorities and small markets,” Smith said. One thing Smith proposes is to raise the ownership attribution trigger on JSAs from 15% of a station’s sales to 30%.

Referring to Chairman Wheeer’s signal that sharing arrangements should be disallowed using the competitiveness argument, Smith sees it as an attack against broadcasters: “If you were really serious about being fair, you would also take on the interconnections between cable and wireless [the NAB has asked the FCC to look into the cable/telco/satellite ad consortia]. What is good for them ought to be good for us, too. But it seems to only be applied against us.” Smith also commented on the, the need for preventing interference in future spectrum auctions, and the uncertainty of blackout provisions.