“While we understand the goal of freeing up spectrum and believe in smart spectrum policy, an equal aim should be to ensure that broadcasters and their viewers are not harmed in the process,” he said. “But at the moment, it is, at best, an open question whether the FCC has balanced those aims.”
FCC Chairman Circulates Draft Rules For TV Spectrum Auction
The financial and technological proposals are incredibly complicated, but they provide the kinds of details that broadcasters have wanted to see before they decide whether to let the federal government auction to broadband providers some of the airwaves now used for TV. The process being circulated by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler includes a reverse auction, where station owners would indicate how much cash they want for their spectrum and can drop out if the bidding is too low.