What is expected to happen after the 600 mhz auction?

[Mr Tony]

Lights, Camera… AUCTION!

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/elections/lights-camera-auction/155620

Broadcasters meeting in Las Vegas this week at the NAB Show will likely be gearing up, literally, for a massive technological challenge. The national auction of broadcast spectrum is just weeks away, but already it looms as a transition vastly more complicated than the one that first took signals digital.

The incentive auction is part of a plan to reallocate spectrum based on efficiency, driven by the needs of the wireless and broadcasting demands of consumers, a plan years in the re-making. At the end, if all goes as planned, wireless companies will have more bandwidth to roll out 5G and meet the burgeoning demand for everything from online video to the Internet of Everything, and broadcasters will continue to deliver their life-saving emergency information and local news and high-value entertainment content, only in even smaller spectrum quarters.

 

[Mr Tony]

further in the article

The FCC has come up with nine different scenarios for remaking the broadcast band depending on how much spectrum broadcasters are willing to give up. They range between 42 MHz at the low end and 126 MHz at the high. (The others are 48, 60, 72, 78, 84, 108 and 114.)


The one the FCC will initially try for won’t be announced until early May. But once it is, the auction will start soon after.


If the FCC does not collect enough in the forward auction to pay broadcasters at the initial clearing target, then it will have to lower its target, which means it will need fewer stations.


The auction won’t start all over—Wheeler told Congress there could be multiple re-auctions, but that may have left the wrong impression. But the FCC will have to go back to the winning bidders and lower prices until enough drop out, then see if the forward auction participants bid enough to cover those prices at that lower clearing target; if not, it will start the process all over again.


That is why Wheeler told Congress the auction may last into fiscal year 2017.

 

[Mr Tony]

further more

Step Right Up!

Having said all of this, one main question remains: Who are the likely participants?


A UHF station has the most options, able to move to a high VHF channel, or low VHF, or give up the spectrum entirely (with the option to share if another station is willing). A high V has one fewer option, while a low V has only one: Give up their spectrum—then either share or get out of the business.


Stations giving up spectrum altogether will get more than those only agreeing to move to a new channel. For example, while WNJU New York’s bid to relinquish its spectrum is the high-water mark at $900 million, it is “only” $675 million to move to a low V, and $360 million to move to a high V.


Winning bidders giving up spectrum will have up to six months to go off the air. Winners who give up spectrum but are sharing with others will have up to a year to switch. They will retain must-carry protections and public interest obligations on the shared channel.

 

[Mr Tony]

HIGHS AND LOWS


Station pricesare calculated according to how much interference would be reduced by reclaiming them and how much population they serve.

The station with the highest opening bid price for going off-air is Telemundo’s WNJU at $900 million.

The lowest opening price for going off-air is KXGN Glendive (Mont.), Nielsen DMA 210, at $1.2 million. But it is at least luckier than any station in Las Vegas, which ironically given that it is the site of this week’s NAB convention, was shut out of the auction—none of its 14 stations was needed in any of the FCC spectrum clearing plans.

There are perhaps a dozen markets in addition to Las Vegas—Boise, Idaho; El Paso, Texas; Yakima, Wash.; Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska among them—that were shut out.

An FCC official explains. “You are talking about areas where, not just in those markets but in adjacent markets, there is enough room to rejigger without having to buy any spectrum at all.”

But wait, there’s less. There will be three more opportunities for the FCC to tell stations that did apply and did get opening bid prices that they aren’t needed in the auction: 1) after it figures out which spectrum auction target to start with, 2) during reverse (broadcaster portion) auction depending on what stations give up spectrum where, and 3) if the FCC has to recalibrate and go to a second round of bidding at a lower spectrum clearing target.

 

[harshness]

It's very disappointing to me that it's confidential which stations are participating.

In what auction environments have you seen a list of who you are bidding against? It is one thing to recognize players once you're there but another entirely to know far in advance who you're bidding against. This is about revenue and the more players there are, the more revenue you're likely to see.