Ten Years Ago... TV Broadcasters Gain Ground in Effort To Delay Return of Licenses for Auction

TV Broadcasters Gain Ground in Effort To Delay Return of Licenses for Auction
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal 6/13/1997, AUTHOR: Bryan Gruley]
Ten years ago, the House Commerce Committee adopted a provision that would let television broadcasters keep their second spectrum licenses -- for the digital television transition -- beyond the FCC's 2006 deadline in areas where 5% or more of households continued to rely solely on over-the-air analog TV signals. Critics warned that extensions would slow the transition to digital TV, lower the amount of money the government would raise in auctions, and enable broadcasters to limit competition since they've got all the licenses: "if broadcasters get to hold on to both blocks of spectrum, nobody else can have it, which means no [new] competition," said Gigi Sohn then with the Media Access Project. Supporters of the provision believed that it protected consumers who couldn't afford new digital TVs or set top boxes.
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