TV stations feel 'squeezed' by airwave auction

As the federal government tries to encourage companies like AT&T and Verizon to create bigger, faster mobile networks, television broadcasters are feeling like the farmers of yesteryear who were asked to sell their land to make way for the nation's highways.

Broadcasters own a valuable swath of invisible real estate on the airwaves and just like farmers, their livelihoods depend on cultivating that fertile space. But the Federal Communications Commission believes clearing new lanes of over-the-air bandwidth will ease mobile network congestion, which leads to dropped calls, stuttering video and hanging e-mails. Broadcasters say they are already feeling the pinch after giving up precious airwaves in the transition to digital TV in 2009. They are worried that their businesses may be in jeopardy as the government embarks on an unprecedented auction. They fret they'll be short-changed in a complex process that is expected to rake billions of dollars into federal coffers. "We've already been squeezed once," said Gordon Smith, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, on the sidelines of the industry's annual gathering, NAB Show. "We're being squeezed twice now. There's no more juice in that squeeze."