WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Federal Communications Commission is celebrating the fact that it was awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a detailed discussion of the innovative Broadcast Incentive Auction that earned the award for the agency. 

This is the agency's second Technical Emmy; it won its first Tech Emmy in 2009, which it shared with CEA (now CTA) and NTSC for the development of NTSC.

“The Incentive Auction provided significant benefits to broadcasters, wireless carriers, consumers and American taxpayers, and it is very gratifying that the Academy has acknowledged the creativity and success of the FCC’s effort by conveying this award,” said Jean Kiddoo, chair of the Incentive Auction Task Force.  “It is a real tribute to all of the dedicated public servants throughout the FCC who designed and implemented the first-of-its-kind, two-sided Incentive Auction.  We greatly appreciate that this Emmy recognizes the lasting value of their effort.” 

The FCC noted that the Broadcast Incentive Auction was a years-long project that allowed over-the-air TV stations to return broadcast spectrum in return for incentive payments.

The innovative auction design included channel sharing options that meant that over 80 percent of the stations that relinquished their spectrum were able to remain on the air while at the same time receiving once-in-a-lifetime capital for investment in their local stations. The freed-up spectrum was simultaneously auctioned to wireless carriers, resulting in new capacity to bring consumers 5G and other broadband services, the FCC said. 

Ultimately, the Broadcast Incentive Auction, which cleared 84 MHz of spectrum, resulted in $19.8 billion in gross auction revenues and provided $10.05 billion in payments to 50 winning broadcasters, while at the same time sending $7.3 billion to the U.S. Treasury to reduce the federal deficit.

In addition, the highly complex and carefully coordinated transition post-auction plan developed by the FCC enabled the broadcast spectrum to be cleared for winning mobile carriers in just 3 years, and for the over 1000 stations who needed to change their over-the-air channels as part of the rearrangement to be fully compensated for their costs to do so.  

The new wireless competition that was enabled by the auction included valuable low-band spectrum to be used to expand geographic coverage and broadband capacity and enable deployment of new 5G services. 

The Emmy is the most recent award that the effort received, the FCC said. 

The team was awarded the 2018 Edelman Award for Outstanding Use of Operations Research and Data Analytics by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).  

In addition, FCC senior economic advisor Evan Kwerel, Ph.D., received the prestigious Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement Medal from the Partnership for Public Service for his auction work. 

FCC auctions more generally were central to the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences won by Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson for their fundamental advances in auction theory and design including “new and better auction formats for complex situations in which existing formats cannot be used.”  

The committee noted that their “best-known contribution is the auction they designed” for the FCC that enabled bidding in simultaneous multiple rounds, which the FCC began using in 1994 to auction portions of the U.S. spectrum for commercial development.

More information is available on the effort at the Incentive Auction “By the Numbers” Public Notice.  

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau (Bureau) have issued a reminder that the third and final deadline is Sept. 6, 2022 for entities and stations seeking reimbursement by the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund for expenses associated with the repack of spectrum that were required after the FCC’s incentive auction of broadcast spectrum.

All low power TV and TV translator (LPTV/translator) stations, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs), and FM stations, as well as a small number of full power TV stations that were granted extensions of the first or second invoice filing deadlines, must submit all remaining invoices in the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund no later than September 6, 2022, the agency said. 

The FCC also stressed that entities do not need to wait for the deadline to submit all remaining invoices and initiate close-out procedures and that all those seeing reimbursement are encouraged to make submissions as soon as possible.  

In 2012, Congress mandated that the FCC conduct an incentive auction of broadcast television spectrum as part of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 ("Spectrum Act"), the FCC said. “The Spectrum Act appropriated $1.75 billion to the TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund for costs reasonably incurred by Full Power and Class A broadcast television licensees reassigned to new channels ("repack"), as well as Multichannel Video Programming Distributors ("MVPDs") that incurred costs related to continuing to carry the signals of reassigned broadcast stations,” the FCC said. 

The 2018 Reimbursement Expansion Act appropriated $1 billion in additional funds for the Reimbursement Fund and expanded those entities eligible for reimbursement to Low Power Television Stations ("LPTVs"), television translators ("TV translators"), and FM stations affected by the repack.

The FCC said that close-out procedures were announced over three years ago on February 16, 2019 and earlier this year the agency announced a final allocation and streamlined the close-out procedures.

Given the lengthy advance warning the FCC said that “extensions of the assigned invoice submission deadlines should therefore not be required” but added that “an entity requesting a limited extension will have to provide evidence that circumstances requiring the extension were outside of its control, such as local zoning or a force majeure event occurring proximate to the final submission deadline.”

The FCC also noted that the Fund Administrator “will initiate close out for any entity that has failed to initiate the process by the invoice filing deadline assigned to that entity.  Any unused allocations made to that entity’s account will be returned to the Fund and made available for allocation to other program participants.”

The FCC also reminded “participants that they must retain documents for a period ending 10 years after the date they receive their final payments from the Reimbursement Fund” and that they may be subject to “audits, data validations, and site visits at any time during the repack and reimbursement process.”

More information is available here. 

WASHINGTON—With Hurricane Dorian threatening multiple states in the southeast, the Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau have announced that the completion date for phase 5 of the repack has been extended from its original date of Sept. 6 to Sept. 11 at 11:59 p.m.

“There remains considerable uncertainty about the future path of the storm and therefore its implications for the completion of construction projects related to the transition, but we are mindful that phase 5 includes a significant number of stations in areas that may be affected by the storm, including North and South Carolina,” the public notice reads. It was also determined that because many of the stations potentially affected by the storm may provide critical information to its viewers, requiring them to rescan their TVs during this time was not prudent.

Despite the extension, the Media Bureau asks that stations not impacted by Hurricane Dorian continue on their previous schedule for phase 5 and complete their transition by Sept. 6. There will still be the option for stations to adjust their transition schedule on a case-by-case basis.

There are no further plans to amend any other start or completion dates for other phases, but the FCC will continue to monitor the storm and make any changes if warranted. 

For more news and insight on the repack, visit TV Technology'srepack silo.

WASHINGTON—The FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau today announced it would make available an additional allocation of funds to full-power and Class A stations as well as MVPDs to reimburse eligible spectrum repack expenses. The money will be available in about two to four weeks, according to an FCC public notice announcing the allocation.

In Fall 2017, when the first allocation of $1 billion was announced, the agency said it would closely monitor the drawdown of the relocation fund and make more money available at a later date. “Our monitoring indicates it is appropriate to release an additional allocation of the available Fund…,” the notice said.

The initial $1 billion represented about 52 percent of the verified cost estimates at the time of commercial stations and 62 percent for noncommercial educational (NCE) broadcasters. Since then, “revised and more granular cost estimates” for reimbursement have become available. As of March 7, the verified and unverified estimates of costs submitted for reimbursement stood at about $1.95 billion.

However, the initial and second allocations will not cover the estimated total for eligible reimbursement, the notice said. Yet the allocations do give these entities sufficient funding to continue their transition to a new channel assignment “while preserving flexibility to respond to unforeseen changes that may arise while undertaking transition activities.”

The next allocation will continue to provide NCEs with 10 percent more of their verified cost estimates, the notice said.

Responding to the news, NAB EVP of Communications Dennis Wharton, said the association is grateful for the new allocation and intends “to work with policy makers to ensure that broadcasters are quickly and fairly compensated for these expenses.”

For more information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.  

WASHINGTON—The Media Bureau and Incentive Auction Task Force wants to make sure that all television licensees have their I’s dotted and their T’s crossed. The organizations are reminding licensees to update or confirm their contact information on file with the Commission.

This information is necessary for providing information and updates on things like channel reassignments that stem from the spectrum incentive auction. For this, licensees must have up-to-date contact information for all stations, including those selected in an FCC form 177 application and those that were not.

To update contact information in the Licensing and Management System (LMS), a station must access the LMS public search home page at https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/public/tv/publicSearch
Landing.html, click on “Facility Search,” enter its call sign or facility ID number for review, then if necessary access the LMS applicant data entry home page at https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/login.html, log in using the FRN associated with the station, click on the “facilities” tab, click on the station’s facility ID number, click on the “file an application” button, select “administrative update” option from the drop down menu, and input appropriate changes.

To update information in the Auction System, access the ISAS log in screen at auctionsignon.fcc.gov or auctionsignon2.fcc.gov; enter applicant’s FRN and password to go to the My Auctions Page; click the “click here to file FCC form 177” link under the “Incentive Auctions” heading; click on “Auction 1001;” then click on the “applicant information” link to view subsections of a particular section of the application; next, click on “contact details;” if details are edited on this page, applicants must click the “certify & submit” button to officially submit changes.