Auction Opening Bid Prices Announced

[larrykenney]

From TV Technology:

Broadcasters’ opening bid prices for the 2016 TV spectrum incentive auction are out. The Federal Communications Commission today released the opening bid price that it will offer each broadcaster in the upcoming auction. It provides the opening bids for the three participation options: relinquishment (including channel-sharing), moving from a UHF to a VHF, or a high VHF to a low VHF.

Read more details here:
http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0002/fcc-auction-opening-broadcaster-bids-released/277179

Prices offered to each station is contained in PDF format at:
http://www.tvtechnology.com/portals/0/Reverse Auction Opening Prices 101615 Attachment.pdf

 

[primestar31]

This move just proves that the people in our government have gone completely insane.

This will completely destroy OTA tv reception for most people. Especially if stations are stupid enough to move to LOW VHF.

You'll have to have a HUGE VHF antenna, (which aren't made anymore) and you'll have to hunt down and stop all electrical noise for your entire block, if not more. That's not an easy thing to do, as all those power bricks in your house can be quite noisy electrically.

NONE of those small UHF only antenna's that everybody is enamored of will work for most people anymore.

 

[jegrant]

Yeah, I agree this is almost a disaster, and frankly Low VHF is what the FCC should be phasing out for TV use, not encouraging it!

 

[Robz]

The FCC is all about "broadband". They only care about more spectrum for cellphones and piss on TV viewers rights. Who owns the spectrum? Clearly not the FCC, the telco companies, or Congress. The FCC stated the need for more spectrum, to keep up with data hungry smart phones and to make available spectrum for G5. I am sick and tired of the FCC's broadband plan. Is more spectrum really needed? I say no, in-fact return spectrum for TV broadcasting. The FCC should ensure that cell phone spectrum is being used efficiently. Improve voice and video CODECS, reduce text spectrum. Hams can do text in a very narrow spectrum. Maybe impose a data usage cycle, one minute on four minutes off. Is having your smart phone really worth the price of all TV broadcasting?
After all, the spectrum belongs to the citizens. You pay to access your own spectrum! You pay Verizion, Att and others to bid outrageous fees to win the spectrum bid! Once TV is dead, "Must Carry" rules no longer apply. That TV broadcaster is off air and may never return.
The reverse auction of 2016 works against the TV viewers and the broadcasting industry. It may destroy or severely reduce TV reception. This is the fault of Congress and the FCC. Write your congressional representatives.
By you, I mean the public in general, not the original poster.

 

[. Raine]

Interesting how the highest price is offered for the option "Move Off Air". What a load of bull. I have some big VHF antennas here so I wouldn't have to run out and buy antennas, but IMO, VHF isn't all that great, is inferior to UHF, overall. Totally agree with Jegrant, they should be phasing out VHF, if anything, not UHF.

Of course, the people behind all of this could give two sh!ts about OTA TV.

 

[Trip]

Why shouldn't it be? If a station moves to VHF, it's receiving money plus spectrum, whereas to go off the air it's money only. Plus, in many areas high-VHF is full anyway so pushing people toward that option doesn't really buy the FCC anything, and even in places where VHF is open, it's only a handful of channels.

- Trip

 

[Mister B]

I would think that low VHF would be a tempting offer for less affluent stations. Yes, we know the technical difficulties, but they would still have the option of either "must carry" or negotiating a contract with paid providers. OTA enthusiasts would know how to put up a proper antenna to receive their signal, besides the majority of antennas I see on homes are still full band 2-83 models (many of which are probably not used).

 

[Voyager6]

So, let's try and figure this out. First, the FCC tried to move all stations off of VHF to UHF for the digital transition as they wanted to sell off the VHF spectrum. When that plan didn't work, they allowed stations to move back to the VFH-Hi and some to VHF 6 and cut out some of the UHF spectrum to sell. Now, the FCC wants to cut out more of the UHF spectrum to sell and "encourage" stations back to VHF-Hi and VHF-Low with huge payments. What happens to us, the consumers of OTA broadcasts, when this switch back to VHF happens? Oh yeah, we get to switch back to VHF/UHF antennas at our own cost of course. And since VHF-Low has such poor range digitally, we probably will lose stations that we can receive now. This whole digital transition has been very intelligently thought out and implemented - not.

 

[Peter Parker]

what about low powered stations?

 

[harshness]

The FCC is all about "broadband". They only care about more spectrum for cellphones and piss on TV viewers rights.

It is all about revenue. Wireless represents significantly more revenue to the FCC and since they have been directed to be more or less self-supporting, that's what you get.

 

[harshness]

NONE of those small UHF only antenna's that everybody is enamored of will work for most people anymore.

Shame on those who spent so much effort advocating UHF-only antennas (you know who you are). Of course this also includes those manufacturers and resellers who marketed "HD antennas".

I grew up with my local ABC (KATU) on channel 2 and CBS (KOIN) on channel 6 so I'm not predisposed to oppose to VHF-low. We even had a channel 3 (KVDO) for a while.

 

[Mister B]

If some stations move from one band to another, especially from UHF to VHF-low it would be a public service if they would run some segments explaining that a different type of antenna is needed. But, I sincerely doubt that will happen. It seems to be a well kept secret what frequencies TV stations actually use. The only way I know of, is to do research on the internet. I understand the whole branding as the virtual channel concept, but am still amazed that the actual broadcast channel is never mentioned. That is, at least in the United States. The transmissions from across the river in Mexico all show the call letters and actual broadcast channel on screen at the top of the hour.

 

[osu1991]

I'm sure they will say something onscreen during newscasts, as a frequency change will require consumers to rescan tuners to continue to receive the broadcasts.

 

[Mochuf]

It is all about revenue. Wireless represents significantly more revenue to the FCC and since they have been directed to be more or less self-supporting, that's what you get.

I'm sure the fact that the wireless industry has more positions for former FCC employees than tv stations might have something to do with it too.

 

[. Raine]

Why shouldn't it be? If a station moves to VHF, it's receiving money plus spectrum, whereas to go off the air it's money only. Plus, in many areas high-VHF is full anyway so pushing people toward that option doesn't really buy the FCC anything, and even in places where VHF is open, it's only a handful of channels.

- Trip

It seems as if it's larger to go off air, like they're hoping that option will be taken and for struggling stations, that may be the only option. Some of the offers to move are ridiculously low.

Right now it's only a few stations. Look at all the recent changes in OTA and my opinion is there will be more changes in the near future.

How many stations can afford to keep current with all these constant changes?
Or, will they bother to, when moving off-air to broadband will be so much easier and cheaper? I could be wrong, but to me, it looks like the writing is on the wall for OTA in the next 10-20 years, if not sooner.

 

[navychop]

Sad, but you speak truth. I just hope things change and OTA continues onward.

 

[harshness]

Some of the offers to move are ridiculously low.

I'd wager that the price is carefully calculated to insure they don't leave too much money on the table with stations are are thinking about discontinuing broadcast (perhaps in favor of cable-only) anyway.

Some of these stations probably struggle to meet their public service quota.

 

[dsmith0429]

FYI, Channel Master still sells VHF antennas, they are not obsolete yet http://www.channelmaster.com/

 

[dsmith0429]

This move just proves that the people in our government have gone completely insane.

This will completely destroy OTA tv reception for most people. Especially if stations are stupid enough to move to LOW VHF.

You'll have to have a HUGE VHF antenna, (which aren't made anymore) and you'll have to hunt down and stop all electrical noise for your entire block, if not more. That's not an easy thing to do, as all those power bricks in your house can be quite noisy electrically.

NONE of those small UHF only antenna's that everybody is enamored of will work for most people anymore.

FYI, VHF antennas are still made... http://www.channelmaster.com/

 

[harshness]

It isn't as if they stopped making FM/VHF/UHF TV antennas. They've been there all along. It was just so much noise from the UHF fans about how superior the band was and how small the antennas were.

RCA markets some good antennas as well.