NAB's Smith: Supreme Court Decision Good For Speech, Bottom Line

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith and B&C reporter John Eggerton appeared on C-Span's The Communicators over the weekend.

Smith called the Supreme Court's decision to allow corporations and unions to directly fund more on-air political spots "a good one for freedom of speech." The interview also addressed spectrum and indecency regulation.

On spectrum he said, "Digital TV should not be sacrificed on the altar of the digital divide." He also said a problem is that spectrum is not a "straight line" issue but a patchwork quilt of uses from community to community. He said he was not sure broadcasters would be able to share their spectrum. "When you say, 'Take it back or turn it in,' I don't know fully how that translates or whether or not we could share the space because the technology that broadcasters use is not compatible with the digital technology that one-to-one types of devices use." He said that after all the billions spent on the digital transition, he thinks it would be "politically impossible" to sell a spectrum reclamation proposal that takes that spectrum back.