May
12
Written by:
5/12/2011 8:22 AM
April 15, 2011: LAS
VEGAS: Going to the NAB Show is like trying to
consume a year’s worth of food in a week. It takes a while to remember what
some of the dishes were. Here’s a few takeaways off the top of my head.
It’s a good time to have a Republican former senator heading up the broadcast
lobby. NAB chief Gordon Smith has as much of a chance as anyone& could to
stall spectrum incentive auction authorization in the House. Federal
Communications Commission Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake said delaying
authorization could ultimately make things worse in 10 years. But holding off
for another year gives everybody the chance to look at the FCC’s mathematics,
while the late MSTV's Victor Tawil figures out an even more complicated channel
repacking plan.
FCC chief Julius Genachowski figures repacking again won’t be a problem because
it’s been done before. May he one day rise to fetch Victor’s pencils.
One thing Genachowski said at the show that got everyone’s attention was the
comment about no one being able to keep their channel assignment in the event
of repacking:
“Voluntary can’t mean undermining the potential effectiveness of an auction by
giving every broadcaster a new and unprecedented right to keep their exact
channel location.”
“Unprecedented?” one broadcaster commented to me. “Seventy years of precedent
guarantees our channel assignments.”
As with all things political, any single issue is driven by an agenda
obfuscated by an agenda obfuscated by an agenda. The old saying is to follow
the money. In this case, you have a flat-broke federal government hankering for
spectrum auction proceeds. Occam’s Razor, right? So I asked a if broadcasters would
be willing to bid on their own spectrum to lock it down, and execute a certain
Neapolitan hand gesture toward federal programming regulations. Without
hesitating, he said “sure,” but he quickly noted that broadcast licenses sell
for multiple millions now because of the infrastructure built around them.
Mobile DTV. Will it save the industry? Who knows, but if I were a TV station
broadcasting a mobile signal, I’d be giving away iPad receivers. However,
consumer adoption may be secondary to the network-versus-station dynamic.
Stations realize they need to do something for free, which doesn’t set well
with networks that now want a piece of absolutely everything from TV stations
include whatever you got in that there tchotchke bag, bub.
Such was the contention at the Fox affiliate meeting when the network
contingent came in that folks were said to storm out afterward. One broadcaster
told me small affiliates that now elect must-carry may be forced to do
retransmission negotiations because the network wants a piece of that cheese.
Look for a wave of local-themed rebrandings this year.
I rely on intelligence when it comes to the show floor--in more ways that one.
Mark Schubin, engineer in charge at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, walked it
for his 40th in a row this year. He takes in literally every booth. This is the
first time I’ve heard him say his feet hurt.
He also made an interesting observation about floor in general. Fewer folks
were crowded around the blue-sky technology, he said.
“More people were looking at real stuff. Avid had a huge crowd. Where ever a
company had glue or basic equipment, there was a crowd,” he said. “I got the
feeling that people really wanted to make this industry work.”
Time will tell.