FCC Reveals Losing Bids, Bidders in TV Incentive Auction

All those TV station employees wondering whether they dodged a bullet in the 2017 broadcast incentive auction can now search for that information. The Federal Communications Commission has made that information public, plus more data on the reverse auction, after placing a two-year hold on publicizing which broadcasters got outbid. The information shows that there were 858 stations willing to give up spectrum, or a little under half of the 1,800 stations the FCC was interested in getting bids from. Those 858 bids totaled a whopping $187,391,861,235.  The FCC had already revealed that a total of 175 TV stations got payouts for giving up spectrum in the broadcast incentive auction, and 50 wireless bidders—including Comcast/NBCU and Dish—got that spectrum, with the largest single TV station payout $304 million. The largest payout for a noncommercial station was $194 million.