Broadcast Band Bullshit

Cited Article

Kim Severson, As Weather Becomes Big Story, TV Forecasters Play the Hero, New York Times, July 19, 2011

My Comment

This article reads like a press release from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the major lobbying arm of the local TV broadcast industry. The NAB is currently seeking a spectrum windfall from Congress worth tens of billions of dollars, and the emergency information argument contained in this article is central to their lobbying campaign. I’d love to know who pitched the article to Kim Severson, the author. I’d also like to know how Kim got the featured anecdote concerning Ms. Eller. I’d be willing to bet that there is a story there. Lobbyists for the local broadcast TV industry are brilliant at getting these types of articles placed. They then distribute them to policymakers when seeking political favors.

Cited Article

Katy Bachman, Air War It’s TV vs. phones in Washington’s explosive broadband battle, AdWeek, May 25, 2011.

Article Quote

“The broadcasters are the ones carrying the scars, having already been forced two years ago to surrender 25 percent of the airwaves they held, when the federal government’s long-planned, long-delayed conversion from analog to digital TV finally went through.”

My Comment

This author can write but her grasp of telecom history is, to put it mildly, rather slight. Consider a writer who relies on the current talking points of the players involved in the Israeli/Palestinian debate. It’s a journalistic formula for possibly getting the current power dynamics right but not one for understanding the underlying issues, including the merits of the arguments made by the conflicting parties. Overall, this piece is written like a sophisticated press release written by the NAB’s Dennis Wharton. Kudos to the NAB for getting its talking points to drive the storyline here. No one doubts the broadcasters’ comparative sophistication in dealing with advertisers!

Here I’d like to dwell on just one claimed historical fact. The author says: “The broadcasters are the ones carrying the scars, having already been forced two years ago to surrender 25 percent of the airwaves they held, when the federal government’s long-planned, long-delayed conversion from analog to digital TV finally went through.”

No, the DTV transition was a huge windfall for the TV broadcasting industry, increasing the value of their spectrum by at least ten times what it would otherwise be valued at today. It’s true that some of the guard band spectrum allocated to TV broadcasting service was given up and that restricted the broadcasters from reaping some of the additional windfall they might have acquired from being granted free use of additional unused guard band space. But the loss of an additional potential windfall is a very funny way to set a baseline for accounting. It’s the type of accounting politicians frequently engage in when they want to score political points in budget battles. But I’d suggest that the appropriate baseline is the spectrum rights individual broadcasters had before and after the DTV transition. And therefore the magnitude of the windfall, at least tens of billions of dollars–and to some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in America–would be the more appropriate historical reference.

On the positive side, the author’s presentation of the politically salient positions does pretty much represent the conventional wisdom today among the political elite in Washington, DC. If all that counts is perception, not reality, in Washington, DC, then the author can be said to have provided a balanced account. However, that is a very low (albeit hardly unusual) journalistic standard.

Cited Article

Levin, Blair, Spectrum Overhaul Long Overdue, The Hill, May 10, 2011

Article Quote

Blair Levin, primary author of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, says: “The question we should be debating is, what process should we use to reallocate spectrum to achieve our country’s purposes?  There are only four alternatives.”

My Comment

I disagree both that there are only four questions and that he has presented the most critical ones.  For me, there is hierarchy of questions, starting with: “Should we allocate spectrum according to the dictates of special interest politics or the public welfare?”

If the answer is special interest politics, then we should allocate spectrum to maximize the windfall to incumbents.  That seems to me like a pretty good summary of how we’ve allocated spectrum over the last 80 years.

If the answer is public welfare, then Levin’s questions are more relevant.   However, in any case, they are distinctly secondary to the more fundamental question of whether we should continue to allocate spectrum based on the preferences of the common weal or those of some of the wealthiest individuals and most profitable corporations in the world.

Arguably, no other natural resource owned by the American public is allocated more corruptly than spectrum.  Until our policymakers acknowledge that reality and make institutional reforms to correct it (see my “Art of Spectrum Lobbying” for suggestions), the high minded debate that Levin wants to hold will be irrelevant–a mere smokescreen–and the past corruption in spectrum allocation the best indicator of the future.

Why does Levin consistently ignore this ignoble past and likely future in his public musings?  I’ll leave that for you to figure out.  If you can, you’re well on your way to understanding why our spectrum policy is such a mess.

Recent Relevant Articles

Mark Miller, NAB’s Smith: Spectrum Crucial To Next-Gen, TVNewsCheck, May 10, 2011

John Eggerton, Smith: Forced Spectrum Move Could Destroy Innovation, Broadcasting & Cable, May 10, 2011

Harry Jessel, So Soon?  Next Gen Broadcast TV in the Works, TVNewsCheck, April 27, 2011

Deborah McAdams, Mobile DTV Group Lines Up Conditional-Access Technology, TVB, March 9, 2011

Cited Article

Peter Passell and Robert Hahn, The FCC’s Trillion-Dollar Gambit, Politico, April 29, 2011

Article Quote

“As part of the deal for switching to a spectrum-efficient digital system, the broadcasters gave up about one-quarter of their spectrum — what used to be UHF channels 52-69. This was auctioned to the wireless telecoms for close to $20 billion.”

My Comment

This is certainly a common canard used by the broadcast lobby and its champions.  But the fact is that the DTV transition was a huge giveaway to, not a giveback from, the broadcast industry. As part of the DTV transition, broadcasters greatly increased their coverage areas at public expense and also won the right to transmit more than a dozen TV channels (hundreds if you include low definition mobile television channels) in the band that previously they were only licensed to transmit a single standard definition TV signal.  They also got many other perks that are too technical to go into here.

The broadcasters were indeed forced to give up some of the unused guard band channels they had previously polluted with harmful interference.  But the guard bands were never the broadcasters to give up.  The DTV technology that allowed the broadcasters to vastly increase their service rights also allowed the FCC to reduce more than $20 billion worth of wasted guard band space in the general TV band allocation.  This tradeoff of giving to TV broadcasters around a hundred billion dollars worth of new spectrum rights in return for reducing their pollution of the wasted guard band space was at the core of the win-win of the so-called DTV transition (originally called the HDTV transition for lobbying purposes).

To only focus on the reduced pollution and waste of the guard band channels, while a good lobbying point for the broadcast industry, is fundamentally misleading.  So too is the fact that Politico didn’t disclose in this commentary that it’s owned by a company with extensive local TV broadcast license holdings and a management that has never been shy about using hardball political tactics to pursue its corporate spectrum welfare lobbying agenda.  Admittedly, Robert Hahn and Peter Passell aren’t Politico staff writers and are highly respected policy analysts, so the conflict of interest seems less blatant.  Still, it would be good journalism ethics for Politico to acknowledge that it very much has a dog in this fight.

Recent Related Articles

Comments of Campaign Legal Center, Benton Foundation, et al., In the matter of Innovation in the Broadcast Television Bands: Allocations, Channel Sharing and Improvements to VHF, ET Docket No. 10-235, April 25, 2011.  Covered in Broadcasting in Cable.

Eggerton, John, NAB-Commissioned Study Offers Alternatives: For spectrum crunch suggests using smart antennas and femtocells to boost spectrum efficiency, Broadcasting & Cable, April 26, 2011.

Jerome, Sarah, FCC: We must not study spectrum issue ‘to death,’ The Hill, April 28, 2011.

Johnson, Ted, Air War Escalates: Are cell providers ‘squatters,’ Variety, April 27, 2011.

Wharton, Dennis, “Study Discredits Claim of Spectrum Crisis for Mobile Broadband,” NAB Press Release, April 26, 2011.  Available at: http://www.nab.org/documents/newsRoom/pressRelease.asp?id=2516.

Cited Article

Wyatt, A Clash Over Airwaves, New York Times, April 22, 2011 (featured on page B1).

Cited Quote

“Sounds kind of like a bank holdup to me,“ Representative John D. Dingell, a prominent Michigan Democrat, told Julius Genachowski, the F.C.C. chairman, at a hearing in February. “You hold a gun at the teller’s head and say, ‘We know that you are going to voluntarily give me this money. If you don’t, I’m going to shoot you.’ “

My Commentary

During his long career in Congress, including as head of the U.S. House Commerce Committee with jurisdiction over broadcasting, Rep. Dingell has never seen a TV broadcast subsidy he didn’t like.  He was also the champion of Jim Quello, a local Michigan TV broadcaster, who he got  appointed to the FCC and who shamelessly supported tens of billions of dollars worth of public rights giveaways to the TV broadcasters. Dingell has been rewarded by his local TV broadcasters not with campaign cash but with favorable TV  coverage.  It is a  travesty of our political and media system that he should have been able to do so much harm to the American people while being politically rewarded for it.   By implying that the way the broadcast industry exerts political influence is solely or primarily through campaign contributions, the article fundamentally misleads the public.   The article fits in the long tradition of giving Dingell a pass and taking his statements, however absurd they might be, at face value.

Why the press engages in exposes of lawmakers who give a few hundred thousand dollars in an earmark to a legitimate if questionable local project but ignores a spectrum rights giveaway of billions of dollars to some of America’s wealthiest individuals and most profitable companies is beyond me.

Cited Article

David Lieberman, Who Will Blink First Over TV Spectrum? Obama Administration Battles Broadcasters, Deadline New York, April 18, 2011.

Article Quote

“The NAB’s biggest concern is that the government might seizespectrum without a broadcaster’s consent. CBS chief Les Moonves echoed that message when he said last week that, as long as it “remains voluntary, we’re fine with that. Because we’re not going to volunteer….  The Obama administration wants TV stations to give up some of their spectrum so it can be redeployed to offer Internet services….”

My Comment

The TV broadcasters are holding out to get 100% of the windfall from the shift to mobile broadband internet uses of their spectrum.  All this talk about broadcast vs. internet is largely a smokescreen for this negotiating ploy.  Broadcasters are moving as fast as they can, without being too blatant, in transitioning to internet services.  In other words, they are trying to become what they purport to criticize.  Their acquisition of geographic area licensing (vs. site-based licensing) and mobile TV rights in recent years–both acquired below the public radar and without public compensation–is just the tip of the iceberg of this strategy.  From the broadcasters’ perspective, too, every day they hold out the demand for spectrum increases and with that their potential windfall.

Lieberman has basically gotten it right.  But the extra details matter, and the broadcasters aren’t going to volunteer them.  For example, when Les Moonves says he’s not going to participate in voluntary auctions, he’s only telling you half of the story.  The other half is that he wants to keep his cake and eat it, too; that is, capture the entire windfall from broadcasters’ abandoning broadcasting in the name of preserving it.

Recent Related Articles

Letter from CTIA to members of Congress, March 17, 2011

Cecilia Kang, President Obama pitches $18 billion wireless broadband plan, Washington Post, February 10, 2011.

The FCC’s Incentive Auction Proposal, Remarks by FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake to National Alliance of State Broadcaster Associations, February 28, 2011.

Brookings Center for Technology Innovation was launched on June 25, 2010, less than a year ago.  Led by Darrell West, it has come roaring out of the gate with a series of timely and highly useful events on hot button technology policy issues.

Less admirably, these events—with their occasional accompanying policy papers–have often served primarily as a megaphone for reflecting elite consensuses and differences rather than moving public policy debates forward.  The overall feel of these events is of a panel discussion at an elite trade show that assembles the obvious and interested elites, is moderated by a trade industry reporter, and is primarily interested in what the powerful and successful plan to do next—except that whereas trade shows charge for admission, Brookings does not.

I have attended more than a dozen Brookings events on technology policy during the past year.  Consider the most recent one, A Framework for Innovative Federal Spectrum Policy, which discussed yet another important, timely issue.   It featured a star-studded panel of spectrum advocates cum experts: Brookings Fellow Adele Morris, an economist and the leading think tank spectrum analyst in Washington, DC today, discussed the ideas in her recent joint paper with spectrum engineer Robert Matheson.  Blair Levin, former broadband czar at the FCC, was, as usual, an informed and colorful speaker.  Jim Ciccioni (AT&T) and Rick Whitt (Google) ably represented the views of carriers and device makers.  And Roger Entner, rounding out this smart set, demonstrated why he has had an illustrious career doing research and consulting for the major telecom players who can afford his services.   What could there be not to like?

The catch is that being smart and influential doesn’t necessarily imbibe you with a thirst for truth, let alone a desire for publicly expressing inconvenient truths.   Of course, it may be argued that thirsting for the truth isn’t what we expect of the DC smart set, let alone individual think tank panelists.  But Brookings, as the convenor?  We may not, in general, expect much of think tanks in the truth seeking department, especially doing the hard work of basic, highly innovative research.  But isn’t Brookings—the Ivy League studded, veritas seeking think thank—supposed to set a higher standard?  Isn’t it supposed to ask the inconvenient questions that the powerful might prefer not to have asked?   Isn’t it supposed to research policy ideas without fear or favor?

Consider that this is the second Brookings spectrum policy event in a row where all the panelists have endorsed giving billions of dollars worth of spectrum rights away to incumbents in the name of spectrum efficiency and political expediency.   That does appear to represent the elite consensus in DC.  But I doubt very much it represents the informed public consensus.  Even worse, one gets the sense that the members of this smart set, like the Obama administration, Congress, and the FCC, want to pretend that giving multi-billion dollar spectrum windfalls to incumbents is a pure win-win with no hard political decisions to be made.

A related omission in framing the debate was the discussion why the broadcast lobby opposes incentive auctions.  The theory proposed by several panelists was that the broadcasters’ spectrum becomes more valuable over time, so the longer they hold out, the more valuable it becomes.  This is true, and I had no problem with this theory.   But the only explanation offered for this theory was the rising demand for mobile broadband services.  There was no discussion of all the little games the broadcasters (and almost all spectrum incumbents) continually play to quietly acquire additional spectrum rights as the clock clicks away.  In the case of Brookings, it’s quite possible that the problem is that Darrell West, the moderator and event organizer, didn’t know any better, as spectrum policy and politics hasn’t been his specialty.  But many of the panelists surely knew better, and they represented the spectrum incumbents’ lobbying strategy that such issues are best dealt with discreetly out of the public eye because what goes around comes around.

The sensibility Darrell West has brought to Brookings’s technology policy initiative is that of a highly skilled journalist.  On timely subjects, he identifies talented and influential policymakers and popularizes their insights for larger audiences.   But the best journalists also report without fear or favor, to echo the New York Times’s motto.    It’s an ideal that few journalists either achieve or seriously strive to achieve because speaking truth to power is, for most journalists, not a profitable line of work.   West, who as a highly regarded political communications scholar has studied these tradeoffs with more care and rigor than any other think tank analyst at Brookings, is surely wrestling with them.   But as illustrated by the countless politicians who rail against Washington while campaigning and then succumb to all its temptations while in office, temptation often overcomes principle.  The same is surely true in the work that think tanks do.

West is undoubtedly striving to achieve a reasonable balance between his concern for the underdog and truth while not ruffling the feathers of the powerful and smart set he needs to cultivate.  Those who observe Brookings Center for Technology Innovation should decide for themselves how Darrell West does his balancing.   But there is no question that whatever balance he has struck, it has helped position Brookings as a leader, perhaps THE leader, in this policy space.

Cited Article

Jenkins, Holman W., AT&T’s Big Bet on Spectrum Folly, Wall Street Journal, March 23 2011

Quote from Article

“… AT&T, whose network in New York is sagging from all its iPhone users, could walk over to any broadcaster in New York with the following proposition: You aren’t getting much value from your broadcast spectrum because most of your viewers are on cable or satellite. Why not lease some of that spectrum to us for mobile broadband?….

Unfortunately, this would require the FCC to show some willingness effectively to deregulate broadcast license holders to do new things with their spectrum….

The only substantive objection is that taxpayers, who own the public airwaves, wouldn’t get a fair shake if broadcast licensees were set free to redeploy their spectrum to mobile broadband. But this is misleading. Under existing law, taxpayers are already entitled to 5% of the revenues if broadcasters turn their spectrum to new uses. If that’s not enough, Congress could always raise it to 10% or 15%.”

My Comment

Let’s apply Jenkins’s economic logic to a licensed hot dog vendor in Central Park who pays a 5% sales tax on all sales.  Jenkins would grant the vendor ownership rights to the area covered by his vending license and call this “deregulation.”   By granting the vendor ownership rights the vendor could do whatever he wanted with the land covered by his license.

Jenkins describes this as a win-win deal.  Since selling hot dogs is hardly the most valuable use of the land, the vendor would earn a lot more revenue by building a high rise condominium complex where his hot dog stand once stood.  The public would win doubly: first, because there is a desperate shortage of housing in Manhattan, especially adjacent to Central Park, and second, because the government would get more revenue from the 5% sales tax on the much higher revenues generated from a condominum complex within Central Park.

Leaving aside the question whether Central Park should remain a park (read “unlicensed spectrum” here), the problem with this economic reasoning is that the public could still get both the condominium complex and the 5% fee on the increased condominium sales even if  the land was auctioned to the highest bidder.  In short, giving the land to the licensed hot dog vendor is an awful deal for the public.

Jenkins calls this “deregulation.”  But it’s nothing of the sort.  It’s a giveaway.  In this case, a giveaway of tens of billions of dollars worth of the public’s assets.

An additional irony is that a 5% (or even a 15%) fee on spectrum sales would be a steal, and a huge competitive advantage for the former TV broadcasters.  Mobile telephone companies (who in addition to paying such fees had to pay billions of dollars to the government to get their licenses) routinely pay a total of about 18% of revenues on federal, state, and local fees/taxes on their mobile services.  (Since taxes vary by local and state jurisdiction, the actual fee/tax in any jurisdiction tends to vary a lot.)  Governments got away with such high fees/taxes because  they were set when mobile telephone service had minimal penetration and was viewed by the public as a luxury tax only on the wealthy.

Where did Jenkins get such an economically flawed argument?  He got it right out of the broadcast lobby’s talking points with members of Congress and FCC.  Indeed, both his proposal and the verbiage with which he expresses it are so close to that of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) that his essay would probably be viewed as plagiarism if  submitted to a peer-reviewed academic publication rather than a newspaper.    But then again, the NAB is probably thrilled to have their talking points published in a respectable, widely read newspaper and written by a commentator with no obvious ties to the broadcast industry.  But then again, the Wall Street Journal is owned by the News Corporation (owner of the Fox broadcasting network), which stands to win a windfall of billions of dollars if Jenkins’s proposal were adopted by Congress and the FCC.  Not incidentally, the News Corporation is not only an NAB member but one of the most notoriously aggressive spectrum lobbyists in the U.S. (For examples, see Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power.)

Related Comment

Snider, J.H., Wall Street Journal Advocates for Broadcasters’ Wet Dream, SpectrumBS.info, February 22, 2011.

Related Articles

Rush for wireless airwaves may drive risky deals, Reuters, March 18, 2011.

Bachman, Katy, Debate Over Spectrum Gets Nasty: Wireless companies, broadcasters trade barbs, AdWeek, March 19, 2011

Downes, Larry, Snowe, Kerry introduce spectrum inventory bill, CNET, March 2, 2011.

Eggerton, John, Station Groups: FCC Spectrum Proposals Are Illegal, Broadcasting & Cable, March 21, 2011.

Gross, Grant, Groups: Spectrum Incentive Auctions Would Raise Big Bucks, PCWorld, February 15, 2011.

Jerome, Sara, Dingell: Spectrum auctions might be a ‘shot in the brains’ for broadcasters, The Hill, February 16, 2011.

Kang, Cecilia, Kerry, Snowe introduce spectrum inventory bill, Washington Post, March 2, 2011.

More Spectrum, Please: AT&T bids $39 billion to get around FCC bottlenecks, Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2011.

Cited Article

Juliana Gruenwald, Official Says Most Broadcasters Unlikely To Give Up Spectrum, National Journal, February 24, 2011.

Quote from Article

“When asked what share of the proceeds broadcasters will want in order to give up spectrum, Weiser said he did not believe it would be much given that they will still have ‘the same business model but it is done … more efficiently.’”

My Comment

At yesterday’s event sponsored by the Wireless Innovation Alliance, I asked the National Economic Council’s Phil Weiser what share of the proceeds broadcasters would get in order to give up the spectrum.  In response, he essentially refused to answer the question. He asserted that receiving a high percentage of the proceeds was not a top priority of the broadcasters—an assertion I found ludicrous. Further, he asserted that since the broadcasters hadn’t made this issue a top priority, the administration and Congress hadn’t focused on it—an assertion I also found ludicrous.

However, Weiser at least tried to either dodge or answer the question. His colleagues at the NTIA and FCC refused to answer the question, although it was also directed at them.

Obviously, the administration and its bipartisan congressional allies on this spectrum issue would prefer to change the subject, as the “win-win” storyline is the one they’ve chosen to use to frame the issue, whereas a “broadcaster windfal” storyline would involve them in controversy and force them to confront the terrifying power of the local TV broadcast lobby .

Right now the broadcast lobby has a two-fold strategy to make sure they receive the lion’s share of any future spectrum auction. First, repackage the broadcast band to acquire as many yet unclaimed spectrum rights as possiible. This has been their main strategy to seek economic windfalls from taxpayers over the last two decades, and with supporters like the National Economic Council, NTIA, FCC, and bipartisan leadership in Congress, they should do extremely well.

Second, to get as high a share as possible of the auction proceeds, should there be one. The primary euphemism broadcasters are using to ensure that the public is only left with a figleaf of return from the auction of the public’s airwaves is “voluntary” broadcaster participation. If participation is “voluntary,” then the only way the government can get the broadcasters to relinquish the spectrum is by giving them the lion’s share of the proceeds. Otherwise, the broadcasters can just hold out for a better offer.

The broadcasters’ two strategies are releated because the more rights you have to an asset for sale, the more revenue you’ll get from the sale.

Shame on the public interest community for not revealing its financial and institutional conflicts of interest with the public on this issue. I suspect that if the issue continues to rise in profile the public interest community will have to take the side of the public, if only in a face saving way, to preserve its credibility. These conflicts have long dogged the public interest community. But we’ve rarely seen the consequences so vividly displayed as in the current intellectually and morally stunted debate.

Related Articles

John Eggerton, NAB Hosting Hill Meetings On Broadband/Broadcast Coexistence: One of many educational efforts NAB spearheading in coming weeks, months, Broadcasting & Cable, February 22, 2011.

Price Colman, Auction Talk Draws TV Spectrum Speculators, TVNewsCheck, February 23, 2011.

Cited Article

Josh Smith, Warner Introduces Bill To Authorize Spectrum Auctions, National Journal, February 18, 2011.

My Comment
Nice rhetoric from Senator Mark Warner, but the devil will be in the details.  If Warner is true to his word, then, like St. Augustine, he will be a reformed sinner.

Few people know that Senator Mark Warner made his fortune in the 1980s from spectrum windfalls at taxpayers’ expense.  In the 1980s, Congress gave away billions of dollars worth of spectrum licenses by lottery.  It was the largest lottery in the history of universe and Warner, one of the major players, figured out a way a walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public assets.  As a lawyer putting together deals and purchasing countless spectrum lottery tickets on behalf of wealthy speculators, such as dentists and doctors,  who knew relatively little about spectrum but could recognize a government windfall when they saw one, he took a cut of winning lottery tickets.  And win he did.  It was all perfectly legal, just like all the special interest perks that Congress dishes out every year.

Warner then took his taxpayer financed windfall to finance a political career, which eventually led him to the U.S. Senate.

So sure, Warner has the spectrum smarts to ensure that the public isn’t once more played for the sucker.  But if I had to bet, I’d put my money on Warner playing the public for a sucker again.  Sure, the public will probably get some billions out of this.  And sure, the spectrum is now so grossly underutilized that just about any other use would be a big improvement.  But the big money will go to the broadcasters: the Disneys, Viacoms, News Corporations, and Comcasts.

Who will tell the people?  Certainly not the broadcasters.

But unfortunately, it’s also not clear that the people really care.  That’s why, assuming Warner believes his own rhetoric, he probably cannot deliver on it.

–J.H. Snider, author of SpectrumBS.info and “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power.”

Sara Jerome, Warner introduces incentive auction bill, The Hill, February 18, 2011.

John Eggerton, Warner Bill Would Cap Broadcaster Spectrum Compensation: Introduced an incentive auction bill to free up wireless spectrum, Broadcasting & Cable, February 18, 2011

Cited Article

Sara Jerome, CTIA estimate faces tough questions, The Hill, February 17, 2011

Quote from Article

NAB Spokesman: “NAB does not oppose spectrum auctions that are truly voluntary, and we look forward to an informed dialogue in coming months on the enduring value of free and local television for all Americans.”

My Comment

What the NAB is really saying: “We don’t mind spectrum auctions as long as nearly 100% of the windfall goes to broadcasters (including some of the wealthiest individuals and most profitable companies in the U.S.) rather than U.S. taxpayers who own the public assets.”

Cited Article

Cecilia Kang, Ex-senator Gordon Smith now represents broadcasters as voice for free, local TV, Washington Post, February 12, 2011.

Quote from the Article

“[Gordon Smith] says spectrum is the ‘seed corn’ of television stations….  Some observers wonder whether Smith is playing a game of poker, trying to get the government to ante up more money for broadcasters in auction.”

My Comment about the Article

Sure, that’s exactly what Smith and his client the NAB are doing.  The NAB, with Congressional sanction, has been negotiating one sided deals at the expense of the American public for generations.  But only in the last few decades, as the value of spectrum skyrocketed, has the cost to the American public of those one-side deals become larger than the entire GNP of many countries.  If the past is any guide, the NAB, with Congressional blessing, will once again deliver a sucker punch to the American public.  Shame on the Washington Post for not disclosing that it has been a longtime member of the NAB and has a dog in this fight.

My Comment about the Washington Post’s posting policy

One of the most interesting findings from my experiment posting comments to various media outlets is seeing which ones tolerate critical comments.  After I posted this comment, the fifth comment on this article, the Washington Post, presumably at the request of Cecilia Kang, took down all five comments, not just my own.  This is not the first time I’ve had this happen with a Washington Post article.  Several years ago I posted a critical comment of a Washington Post article that had covered a school board meeting that I had attended, just before the Washington Post stopped covering the school system (Anne Arundel County).  The reporter hadn’t actually attended the meeting but nevertheless wrote about it and got some information wrong.  In that case, I was the only person who had commented on the article.  In my postings on spectrum policy, the only other news outlet so far not to accept my comments is Broadcasting & Cable.

Cited Article

Holman Jenkins, FCC vs. Innovation: It’s crazy to exclude TV broadcasters from the world of mobile broadband, Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2011

Quote from the Article

Jenkins: “If freeing up spectrum for more profitable uses is so urgent, why not deregulate broadcasters to do it themselves?”

My Comment

Mr. Jenkins proposes that the public give broadcasters, some of the wealthiest individuals and most profitable corporations in America, tens of billions of dollars worth of public assets.  Mr. Jenkins frames the question as an issue of deregulation, but it is really a matter of giving a licensee to use public assets a perpetual and much more valuable license without public compensation.  If members of Congress didn’t live in terror of their local broadcasters and the propensity of those broadcasters to exact retribution if the government were to take away their spectrum subsidy, this would never even be an issue.  Instead of cutting worthwhile and necessary public programs, Congress should be cutting this subsidy that the broadcast industry doesn’t deserve and doesn’t need.

Quote from the Article

NAB Spokesperson: “Mr. Herman’s idea is ‘very intriguing’ and “we think the FCC should be open to new ideas.”

My Comment

Mr. Jenkins cites Mr. Herman’s specific proposal to “deregulate” broadcasters as an inspiration for his commentary.  But as for the NAB’s statement that Mr. Herman’s idea is fundamentally new, this is beyond preposterous.  NAB chief lobbyist Jim May pushed for even more complete broadcast spectrum deregulation in the early 1990s and only backed off because, after the spectrum auctions from 1994-1996, it became clear that such a proposal would be a blatant giveaway of public assets.  Nevertheless, this has always been the wet dream of every sentient broadcaster with an IQ of more than 50.

Cited Article

John Eggerton, CEA’S Shapiro: Broadcasters Have Terrified Hill With Power To Demonize Legislators, Broadcasting & Cable, January 14, 2011.  Note: Eggerton is reporting on an interview Shapiro had on C-SPAN’s Communication Series.

Quote from the article

Asked by Telecommunications Reports Senior Editor Paul Kirby about his quote at the CEA convention in Las Vegas earlier this month that broadcasters were spectrum “squatters,” and asked  how tough it would be for the government to get that spectrum back, Shapiro said that broadcasters are a “phenomenal political lobby” and have “terrified members of Congress with their power to use their broadcast signals in a way which demonizes members of Congress.”

“The National Association of Broadcasters has no interest in responding,” said NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton.

My Comment

My kid’s elementary school has an antibullying policy requiring disclosure of bullying behavior.  It’s too bad that no similar disclosure policy exists for broadcast bullies.

Bullies learn in kindergarten that the best strategy when accused of bullying is not to admit of the bullying behavior when there is any possibility of plausible deniability.  This may consist of denial or, as Dennis Wharton does here, refusing to answer the question.  Over his career, Wharton, who has served as the longtime public spokesman for broadcast bullies, has tried just about every trick of plausible deniability.

Every school bus in my district now has a video camera in it to prevent bullies from playing the broadcast bully’s game of plausible deniability.  It’s unfortunate that no similar combination of technology and policies makes it possible to verify the actions of the broadcast bullies.

Addendum

Broadcasting & Cable, the trade publication that serves as the mouthpiece for broadcast interests, did not publish this comment.  So much for their commitment to the First Amendment and a robust discussion of diverse and competing ideas.

Other Related Article

David Hatch, CES SHOW: CEA’s Shapiro Lashes Out at Broadcasters, National Journal, January 6, 2011

My comment

During the last 20 years, broadcasters have been showered with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of corporate welfare in the form of new and more valuable spectrum rights. The bonanza has come because broadcasters pointed their political guns at the heads of their local members of Congress and said: “give me or else.” What’s a scaredy cat member of Congress to do? For Wharton, the NAB’s long-time spokesman, to claim that the broadcasting industry gave back a quarter of its spectrum is akin to a robber baron handing out dimes to the homeless and having his publicist boast of it. Shameless.

Cited Article

Ezra Klein, Prime ‘beachfront spectrum’ for all – if Congress will help, Washington Post, January 8, 2011.

My comment

As I would expect from Ezra Klein, brilliantly written about an area of public policy characterized by chronic official corruption. But Klein never moves beyond the headline news to reveal the professional wrestling show and hidden political dynamics of his subject matter.

Other Related articles:

David Oxenford, Gazing Into the Crystal Ball – What Washington Has In Store For Broadcasters in 2011, Broadcast Law Blog, January 5, 2011.

David Oxenford, FCC Adopts Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Looking to Reallocate Some TV Spectrum to Wireless Broadband, Broadcast Law Blog, November 30, 2010.

John Eggerton, FCC Media Bureau to Broadcasters: Help Us Structure Spectrum Auctions: Chief Bill Lake reiterates that incentive auctions will be voluntary, Broadcasting & Cable, December 8, 2010.

Broadcasters are urged to air new TV and radio spots Jan. 4-24 in conjunction with the launch of TheFutureOfTV.org, TV NewsCheck, December 13, 2010

John Eggerton, Genachowski: Underused Broadcast Spectrum Needs to Be Repurposed: Should be used for mobile wireless broadband, Broadcasting & Cable, 1/6/2011

Cited Article

Steve Coll, Fox News should fund NPR, Washington Post, October 31, 2010. Coll is the president of the New America Foundation and former managing editor of the Washington Post.  (Disclosure: I was a senior research fellow and research director at the New America Foundation prior to Coll’s being appointed president and have criticized the Foundation’s undisclosed conflicts between its scholarly, journalistic, and advocacy activities).

My Comment

In his commentary, Steve Coll retreads some tired old ideas in communications policy and advocacy.  Not that there is anything wrong with the ideas per se (indeed, I consider Coll’s goals laudable), but when you’re apparently clueless about history, you’re doomed to repeat it.   Since at least the mid 1980s a host of scholars, advocates, and even policymakers have been making virtually identical arguments to Coll’s.  One reason they haven’t succeeded is, of course, the legendary political power of the broadcast industry.  Rather than being blushing maidens when it comes to hardball lobbying, TV broadcasters have long excelled at it, although out of the public eye (see my “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power”).

One of the reasons for the failure is that decades ago NPR and other public broadcasters decided that the commercial broadcasters were too powerful to ever allow the type of trade Coll proposals.  Operating on the practical principles that “if you cannot fight them, join them” and that” there is more to be gained by cooperating than fighting” with the commercial broadcasters, NPR has been a champion of the very farce that Coll laments.  At virtually every opportunity to bring more accountability to the use of public airwaves by commercial broadcasters, NPR has either vigorously supported the broadcasters or stood on the sidelines, counting on victory while letting the commercial broadcasters play badboy.  In return, NPR got a huge increase in its spectrum rights (doubling their access to spectrum in just the last ten years, as part of the radio industry’s transition to digital radio) and buying off a potentially powerful foe, who would be able to retaliate effectively if NPR vigorously lobbied for Coll’s recommendations.

NPR provides an outstanding news product, but, as Coll notes, not in the very narrow realm where its corporate bottom line is most effected by public policy: the FCC’s policies regarding its use of the public airwaves.  In his own field of foreign affairs reporting, Coll is a great writer with equally impressive credentials.  But in this subject area, he and some of his colleagues at New America have focused too much on popularization.  There is an important role for skilled popularization (which some folks call plagiarism, when the work is accompanied by a claim of originality), but in this case, even by the standards of a popularizer, Coll hasn’t done his homework.  Given that taxpayers have contributed millions of dollars to Coll’s foundation for work on communications (the taxpayer subsidies come indirectly, via tax breaks to wealthy individuals who give money to foundations who then give money to Coll’s foundation), it’s sad that this is what we got for our money.  Perhaps Coll could do more good by offering to give some of his foundation’s taxpayer subsidies to NPR.   (Disclaimer: none of the above should imply that much of the work done at Coll’s foundation isn’t first rate, especially as journalism and advocacy).

–J.H. Snider