LPTV advocate Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia says the FCC needs to provide more information on its assumptions about the impact of the upcoming broadcast incentive auction on LPTVs and translators.
Those are stations that, while licensed, are not participating in the auction and whose signals are not protected in the repack of stations following the auction.
The group Wednesday (Nov. 11) asked the FCC to reopen the record in its incentive auction rulemaking proposal on mitigating the auction impact on LPTVs and translators and allow parties to comment after it has provided that information. They also say the FCC should wait until a report requested by some members of Congress has been released.
Reps Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) last October asked the Government Accountability Office to study the impact of the auction on LPTV and translator stations.
"This is information the Commission should make publicly available before finalizing 'life and death' decisions about the fate of LPTV stations," the group told the FCC.
