While invoking fond memories of growing up in Michigan and listening to radio legends J.P. McCarthy and Dick Purtan, Matthew Berry, chief of staff to FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai delivered a serious message to television broadcasters.
In a speech for the Michigan Association of Broadcasters Advocacy Conference, Berry had sharp words related to the agency’s recently voted on recent broadcast incentive auction procedures and the post-auction 600 MHz band plan.
He called it a “mess.”
“To be clear, I don’t know whether the incentive auction will be a success. It might be. It might not be. But I do know that the FCC is poised to dump serious post-auction difficulties into the laps of broadcasters, wireless carriers, and future commissions,” said Berry.
Too many broadcasters have been placed in the wireless portion of the 600 MHz band. Televisions being “sprinkled like fairy dust” throughout that portion isn’t good for them, nor the wireless carriers because it will lead to “permanent inter-service interference, according to Berry, who also criticized the vote to place TV broadcasters in the duplex gap.
