WASHINGTON – Lawmakers may not be able to quickly pass legislation to pay television stations for relinquishing airwaves, National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith said.
Odds are 50 percent that the current Congress will act to pay station owners, Smith, a former U.S. senator, said in an interview on Tuesday at Bloomberg’s office in Washington.
President Barack Obama’s administration wants to devote more airwaves to wireless high-speed Internet service, or broadband. It proposes paying TV station owners to voluntarily surrender unneeded airwaves, which would be auctioned. Obama needs congressional approval to send proceeds to TV companies, rather than the Treasury.
“You have an issue of enormous complexity,” Smith said. “That makes it hard. And it affects people locally. You have a divided chamber.”
Broadcast and spectrum concerns are in a “second tier” behind issues such as national defense, health care and the federal budget deficit, Smith said. Congresses are most productive during the first year following an election, and less so later as the next set of elections looms, he said.
“If it isn’t done by Labor Day, middle of October, it’ll be harder to get done the following year,” Smith said.
Broadcasters want to be assured that their participation is voluntary, and they don’t want to be moved to different swaths of airwaves that may not carry their signals as far, Smith said.
The effect of the auction plan on broadcasters, including ABC owner Walt Disney Co. and News Corp., depends on details of legislation, Rebecca Arbogast and David Kaut, Washington-based analysts for Stifel Nicolaus & Co., said in a Feb. 10 note.
The plan is “generally positive” for the wireless industry, with companies that could benefit including AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless, Samsung Electronics Co., Google Inc. and Apple Inc., Arbogast and Kaut said.
