While Hollywood Slept?

The FCC wants US television to give up almost half its over-the-air spectrum. Doing so may end up prying away strategic options that are an important part of Hollywood's as-yet-undefined future. The television industry should take a closer look before it's too late, reframing the debate away from technical matters and "broadband strategy" and towards TV's own future. 

Somewhat buried in the Federal Communication Commission's National Broadband Plan  is a step to "reclaim" about 120MHZ of the 300MHz broadcasters use to distribute television signals over the air.

Positioned as a technical initiative, the government rationale is to make more efficient use of scarce wireless spectrum in the aftermath of the national transition to digital television. The FCC asserts that, after assorted transmission inefficiencies and spectrum housekeeping are taken care of (station "repacking", antenna reconfiguration, selective spectrum sharing, etc.), broadcasters will be left with more than enough spectrum to deliver their signals.

Even with HD broadcasts, goes the story, with a little left over for adjustments to avoid signal interference, broadcasters won't notice the difference and will be compensated by sharing in the proceeds of a national spectrum auction in which their excess and voluntarily-relinquished spectrum is resold. The reclaimed spectrum would then contribute to overall national broadband goodness by significantly increasing wireless broadband capacity.

In a recently released technical paper, the FCC envisions an aggressive schedule in which rulemaking is concluded next year, spectrum is reclaimed and auctioned to new operators in 2012, and the spectrum is cleared for new use in 2015.

To its credit, one of Hollywood's trade associations - the National Association of Broadcasters - has taken a very skeptical view of this agenda. While politically astute enough to praise the overall National Broadband Plan, the NAB has warily questioned the offer-to-good-to-refuse voluntarism of the proposed spectrum measures. The NAB has raised legitimate, albeit vague-sounding concerns about backward-looking government intervention potentially ill-suited to rapidly changing technology.

There are two major premises underlying the government's position that
broadcasters wouldn't really be giving up anything they needed anyway:

1. it's not like over-the-air TV is going to grow: multi-channel TV is widely available from cable and satellite and (implicitly) will be increasingly accessible via the internet
2. Mobile TV isn’t your department: you win by letting others have the spectrum and developing those services

If we were sitting in, say, Bob Iger's or Rupert Murdoch's office, we'd make the following counter-argument:

• irreversible? Keep in mind that once you give up/sell-off that spectrum, the chances of getting it back aren't very good. So how about we take the time to think through some potentially valuable uses before being railroaded into relinquishing these un-/underused assets?
• who says OTA won’t grow? Maybe. Admittedly it’s late,  but why completely rule out Freeview-style initiatives in the US?
• what’s the rush? You're in the still-early stages of figuring out how TV and the internet fit together - it's quite possible spectrum in your station groups currently being used for unwatched digital subchannels could be
  be used to redefine what a "channel" means and, when combined with simple interactive technologies, become a major means for viewers to discover and engage with an increasingly complex and overwhelming array of programming, both “linear” and internet-delivered
• phone guys? you’re kidding, right? Why assume "others" should/would be better at implementing mobile TV with your spectrum than you? Maybe if we were talking about Apple, but phone companies? Cable companies? Qualcomm? Cisco? Their sorry multi-decade track record of technology-centric TV futurism is unlikely to produce meaningful advances that viewers and advertisers will value. Why not have people who actually know and run the television business in charge and contract out technology work instead of vice-versa?

Let's not be in such a rush to "reclaim" spectrum before Hollywood has a chance to stake its own strategic claim to television's future.

 

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