Governor Brian Sandoval, representing the citizens of his state, has asked the FCC to make sure that by the time the incentive auction is in the history books, residents of his state still have the same access to free over-the-air television that they enjoy right now.
In a letter to all five Commissioners, Sandoval wrote, “We join with the commercial and public broadcast stations in the West and throughout the country in urging the Commission to ensure that the planned spectrum auction does not disenfranchise any American by leaving them without access to news, weather, emergency messages, cultural, arts and entertainment programming accessible through free over-the air broadcast signals.”
Sandoval noted that his state is full of small isolated communities where many rely on over-the-air facilities for television service.
Yes, he acknowledged, viewing options are pushing into these areas, but they come with a price tag. The need for a free viewing via TV translators and boosters remains as important as it ever has been.
Sandoval concluded, ‘We urge the FCC to ensure its auction process leaves no community without access to free over-the-air television broadcasts.”
Broadcasting should not lose any more spectrum to non-broadcast services. We have already lost channel 1 and channels 52 – 83. If these “thefts” keep occurring then someday you will be required to subscribe to TV services and if you do not subscribe then you have no TV. The only removal of TV channels that I can accept is the taking of TV channel 5 and 6 for Digital Audio Broadcast use. The FCC should look at the pager bands to see if they are being utilized well enough to justify their continued existence.
We will not lose all our TV stations but there is no way we will not lose some service if this auction goes through. We lost one statiion when channels 52 to 69 were taken away. And recently a new station has blocked out an out of town station on the same channel. There are already too few channels for TV.
You’re going to think I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here, but I don’t think so.
First, Channel 1 is the 6 meter ham radio band. How is that a bad thing, especially if it could save your life one day?
As to the rest, how many different ways to you need to watch “Big Bang Theory” or whatever? The truth is that Over The Top (OTT) is the future–the proverbial car the the broadcasters that make up the proverbial buggy-and-whip makers. Bandwidth is a precious thing, and broadcasting mostly wastes it. Sure, you have your live events such as news and the Superbowl, but the rest of the time terrestrial broadcasters are just repeating what comes off their satellite dishes–something you can now do at home.
You won’t lose channels during the repacking. You will GAIN additional bandwidth for smartphones and more, and be able to watch more cat videos and–hopefully, but probably not–pay less. And in a rural area, wireless is the only real way to get access.
I point out that I used to work in 2 TV stations and almost worked in a radio station, and yet I still say all this because it just makes sense. These auctions benefit everyone, while broadcasting and NAB only benefit a handful of rich people and TV addicts who don’t know better.
Oh, I do agree with your comment on the pager bands, though. Hard to believe they’re still around–where are the users? I haven’t seen one in a decade or more…
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