LAS VEGAS – “It’s great that you can get XM Channel 153 – the comedy of Canada – on your iPad,” National Association of Broadcasters president and CEO Gordon Smith told delegates on Tuesday, “but isn’t it more important for a community to get severe weather warnings on local 101.1 FM or local 1580 AM?
“Isn’t that a public good?”
In his state of the industry address, Smith was addressing the various challenges facing his radio and TV membership. Not least of which is battling against a rising tide of opinion that broadcasting is yesterday’s technology and that broadband and wireless will rule.
“The state of broadcasting is more forward-looking than it has been in two decades,” added Smith. Besides, “broadcasting is technologically astute, because it uses much less spectrum to reach more people. The axiom of its existence is that its signal goes from one to everyone…rather than one to one as cell phones do. So, in terms of spectrum use, it is a much more efficient technology. Technologically agile, beneficial to the community and free – so what’s not to like?”
However, the federal government here is pressing the industry, wanting to take more of the spectrum TV and radio stations use to make the frequencies available for wireless broadband.
‘Less than two years ago, broadcasters gave up more than 25% of TV spectrum and spent $15 billion transitioning from analog to digital television… We embraced this digital future so that we could offer dazzling HD programs and multicasting; so we could offer consumers more choices and deliver content on different platforms, such as sending video to smartphones, tablets and laptops.”
“We spent these billions because we knew we needed to remain relevant to new generations, who expect to get their content on the go. Now, less than two years later, wireless companies want ANOTHER 40% of TV spectrum.”
Smith vowed a pitched battle in Washington to protect his members, saying, “Hey…we already gave at the office!
“There is not enough spectrum in the universe to replace our one-to-many broadcast system to a one-to-one transmission architecture. Even the wireless companies themselves concede they will need to eventually use some of their spectrum in a broadcast-type architecture, specifically for sending mass appeal video content to smartphones,” explained Smith.
“Wireless carriers are talking about a ‘looming spectrum crisis’ these days. For whatever reason, they seem to have found a sympathetic ear in Washington. Sounds spooky, but the truth is what they really have is a capacity crunch — not a spectrum crisis. The fact is there has been more spectrum allocated to mobile broadband than there is capital to deploy it.”
Smith also noted how there are a growing, not shrinking, number of people who are getting their TV off-air, rather than pay a cable, satellite or telephone company for television. The young and tech-savvy are adding their numbers to the poor and elderly who for so long held out of purchasing a cable subscription.
“One in three Spanish-speaking households, for example, depend totally on over the air,” he added.
“Why should people in Kentucky, for example, have their local stations’ signal potentially degraded… so urbanites in Manhattan can have a faster download of the app telling them where the nearest spa is located?”
Then Smith turned his attention to the other big Washington fight: retransmission consent (known in Canada as the fee-for-carriage debate). In the States, broadcasters who give up mandatory carriage have the right to negotiate a fee for carriage on cable or satellite.
“Stations deserve the right to negotiate for compensation of their programming. And we know that the system works, because thousands of agreements have been successfully negotiated over the years, with a success rate of over 99%. Only a sliver of the negotiations has led to a disruption of service,” he explained.
There have been a handful of battles over the past few years which saw local broadcasters pull their signals from cable carriers in the States when the two sides could not come to an agreement.
“Some pay-TV companies want to pay nothing or only a pittance for local stations’ signals – even though local content and network programming offered by broadcasters are the ones viewers watch most,” said Smith.
“When we say it’s free, we mean it’s free to viewers, not to multi-billion dollar corporations that sell subscriptions on the backs of our content.
Americans don’t like people interfering with their guns, their faith or their favorite TV show,” he added.
– Greg O’Brien
