NERW 5/2/2016: Unpacking the Repack

In this week’s issue… What TV will look like without channels 30-51 – WEEI, Red Sox extend deal – Seven Mountains buys again – CBC seeks new London expansion – New FM in Quebec?

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*One of the themes that was impossible to miss at last month’s NAB Show in Las Vegas was the uncertainty surrounding the impending TV spectrum auction and repack. Now a bit of that uncertainty has been stripped away with the FCC’s announcement that it intends to auction off 126 MHz worth of what remains of the UHF TV dial, wiping out all TV past channel 29.

But if we now know with certainty that the spectrum of present-day channels 30-36 and 38-51 will go into the auction pool at the end of this month, we don’t know exactly what the TV dial will look like in a few years when the auction and repack are completed.

Just because we don’t know all the details yet doesn’t mean we can’t answer some questions, though, and so, as we do from time to time, here’s a little unpacking of the repack:

• 126 MHz? Isn’t that a lot of spectrum to take away? It sure is, especially on the heels of the removal of channels 52-69 from the UHF TV spectrum at the end of analog TV in 2009. But the FCC says it didn’t arrive at this figure randomly: it expects to be able to auction that much spectrum to wireless carriers, and to be able to reclaim that much spectrum from TV broadcasters through its reverse auction. That’s a boost of confidence in the auction process after the word started circulating at NAB that wireless operators weren’t ready to spend as much as the FCC hoped on spectrum.
• My local station is on channel 38. Is it going away? Not automatically, and maybe not at all. This is where the “repack” part of this process all comes in to play – the FCC isn’t forcing any stations off the air involuntarily, or even making anyone who’s currently on UHF move to VHF unless they’re willing to take a payment to do so. But having said that, a repack all the way down to channel 29 means an awful lot of TV stations will have to at least change UHF channels, even in smaller and more remote markets where the FCC isn’t going to get much money, if any, for spectrum. In the Plattsburgh/Burlington market, for instance, stations will have to be moved off RF channels 32, 38 and 44, with those costs being repaid out of the FCC’s auction proceeds.
• Who’s going away, then? For the moment, this is one of those classic “anyone who knows isn’t talking, and anyone who’s talking doesn’t know” scenarios, thanks to the gag order the FCC imposed on auction participants once the process began this spring. We can make some reasonable assumptions – for instance, that the networks aren’t going to auction off their main owned-and-operated stations in big markets such as New York, Philadelphia and Boston, nor are most of the “big four” affiliates vulnerable even in smaller markets. It’s a pretty safe guess that most duopoly signals will be auction bait, such as CBS’ WLNY in New York and WPSG in Philadelphia or Univision’s WFUT New York. It’s widely rumored that Ion Media will put its collection of UHF signals into the auction, and it’s a near-certainty that little-viewed UHFs such as Boston’s WMFP and WYDN will be cashing out in the auction, too. But again – we simply don’t know any of this for certain until the FCC makes the auction results public.
• Channel sharing will be key. Among the many potential moves in this auction/repack is a particularly tricky one – stations can not only surrender their licenses completely, they can also agree to move downward (from UHF to VHF or VHF-hi to VHF-lo) or to share spectrum with another licensee. And that’s where this heads into eighth-dimensional chess: there are so many permutations of channel-sharing that it’s hard to even begin to plot out how this will all end once the auction wraps up. Just for one example, take Sunbeam in Boston: its NBC affiliate (for now) is WHDH-TV on RF 42. Let’s assume WHDH isn’t going into the auction, but will nevertheless have to be moved down to a lower UHF channel. So what becomes of WLVI, Sunbeam’s CW affiliate (for now) on RF 41? Does it enter the auction completely and surrender its license in exchange for a huge cash payout? Does it agree to channel-share with WHDH for a smaller cash payout (which will preserve cable must-carry for both WLVI and WHDH?) Or to go to low-band VHF, where there’s still a channel 7 antenna in place on the WHDH tower in Newton? We take this back – it’s into ninth-dimensional chess by now.
• A bit of certainty (maybe) for tower owners? Among the many stakeholders watching the repack process closely have been the operators of master sites such as the Empire State Building and the new 1 World Trade Center. They’ve been holding off on new builds and rebuilds until they have a better idea of who’ll be on the air and on what frequencies – and now they know with certainty that UHF TV will be operating in a fairly limited band of frequencies from channels 14 to 29 (and actually even less than that in the biggest markets, where channels 14-20 are shared with land mobile radio.)
• Tower crews? Good luck with that. With everyone now operating on channel 30 and above destined to move, that’s a lot of antennas to be changed out in a fairly short time – nearly the entire Buffalo market, for instance, as well as most of Hartford and Philadelphia. There’s pretty universal consensus that there simply aren’t enough trained crews to do all that work quickly and safely enough, and there may not be enough manufacturing capacity to make all those changes, either. FM stations aren’t safe, either – many of them with antennas side-mounted on TV towers may experience disruptions as crews work around them to swap out TV antennas.
• See you in court? Removing all those channels from TV use will be especially hard on low-power TV stations, most of which are secondary operations that aren’t guaranteed a repacked home once the spectrum is compressed. With so much at stake and so little to lose, will we see some of those low-power stations head to court to at least try to stall the FCC’s hand on the repack? And if they do try to get legal relief, how long could a repack be delayed?
• Oh – and what about the viewers? Let’s stipulate that in most markets, 75% or more of viewers will barely notice the repack, because they’re watching on cable or satellite and won’t be affected by changes in over-the-air TV. But the TV universe still has plenty of cord-cutters and second-set homes that depend on TV that comes out of an antenna, and for them, the next few years will be complicated. Between rescanning, struggling with touchy VHF reception and, eventually, the move to ATSC 3.0 encoding, will most over-the-air homes even be able to follow the bouncing ball that will be TV in the late 2010s and early 2020s?

Plenty of questions, then, and we’re at best informed speculators when it comes to most of the answers. We’ll be watching closely as the answers begin to develop…

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*We’ve spent a ton of time in the MASSACHUSETTS section of this column over the years pondering the future of Boston Red Sox radio broadcasts, but we can put that aside for a few more years with the word that the Sox and incumbent broadcaster Entercom have signed another extension to their deal that will keep the team on WEEI-FM (93.7) through the 2023 season.

As we’d expected, the new deal is a little easier on Entercom’s pockets than the ten-year, $200 million deal that set records when it started in 2006. Back then, of course, the Sox had multiple suitors for their radio rights, including the prospect of partial ownership of Greater Media’s WBOS (92.9). This time around, WBOS is off the table, and it appears that in the midst of its impending spinoff, CBS Radio wasn’t a strong contender for Sox radio rights, either. (We hear that CBS was more interested in using the Sox to bolster AM news-talker WBZ than in adding the team to the strong Patriots-Bruins lineup at “Sports Hub 98.5” WBZ-FM, while the Sox wanted a consistent FM flagship.)

Boston.com reports that the new Sox/WEEI deal is worth about $15 million a year, still a very healthy figure for a team that’s been less than impressive on the field these last few seasons. By the time it’s over, it will take WEEI close to the three-decade mark with the Sox; the team came to WEEI (then on AM 850) in 1995 and has been with Entercom ever since, including a three-year stretch when the Sox moved down the dial to WRKO (680).

All of which leads to the conclusion that we’re in for a lengthy period of status quo: Sox and Celtics on WEEI, Patriots and Bruins on WBZ-FM and perhaps the strongest sports radio rivalry in America poised to continue into the next decade.

(Out west, meanwhile, the Berkshire Eagle picked up on something we missed, which was the disappearance of Yankees broadcasts from WBRK 1340 in Pittsfield this season. The locally-owned AM station says the rights fees for the WFAN-produced coverage had become too expensive.)

*We now have the rest of the pieces of the deal between Horizon Christian Fellowship and Maine’s Light of Life Ministries: Horizon is paying Light of Life $105,000 for WWRN (88.5 Rockport), which was already carrying Horizon’s “Renew FM” programming. “Renew” is also airing on WMDR (1340 Augusta) up in Maine, as well as on WMDR’s 94.3 translator.

*In Worcester, UMass is selling WFCR (88.5) translator CP W247CD (97.3) to Townsquare Media, which will move it to Augusta, Maine to relay WJZN (1400). Townsquare will pay $85,000 for the translator, which Beth Griffin brokered.

*In New Bedford, Jim Phillips has left the building for the last time. Phillips (right) started at WBSM (1420) in 1973, left for local cable news in 1984, then came back to WBSM as news director in 2006.

*And we’re sorry to pass along news of the death of John Carlson, whose career in Boston sports radio went back to Brockton’s WBET (1460) in the 1950s. Carlson went on to work Patriots radio broadcasts on WBZ in the 1970s and on WEEI (590) from 1980-86, including the radio call of Super Bowl XX. He served as a sports talk host on WEEI starting in 1974, and later did sports talk on WRKO (680) as well. Carlson also called New England Whalers hockey, ECAC college hockey and other sports, as well as Minnesota Vikings football later in his career. In recent years, he was most often heard on Boston airwaves as the voice for a replacement countertop company. Outside of radio, he coached junior football and had a long career with the Massachusetts Army National Guard, which he served as assistant adjutant general. He died April 5, at age 82.

*A CONNECTICUT translator conflict has been resolved with Family Stations’ amendment to its translator application for WCTF (1170 Vernon). Instead of requesting 97.5 for the relocated W282AD (104.3 East Windham NY), WCTF has now been granted a modification to put the translator on 92.1; that, in turn, cleared the way for the competing Hartford-area 97.5 application from WKND (1480 Windsor) to also be granted.

*Following the death of RHODE ISLAND icon Buddy Cianci, Providence’s WPRO (630)/WEAN (99.7) unveils its new talk lineup today. Dan Yorke moves into Cianci’s former 3-6 PM slot from middays, with Matt Allen taking Yorke’s former noon-3 slot. Tara Granahan, who’d been filling in since Cianci’s death, moves to 6-9 PM, which makes WPRO one of Cumulus’ most live and local stations, straight through from Gene Valicenti’s morning show and John DePetro’s 9-noon slot right up until the syndicated John Batchelor at 9 PM.

*Radio people on the move to VERMONT: Paul Jarvis is departing Greater Media’s WBOS (92.9) in the Boston market after a decade at the station, where he’s most recently been APD, music director and morning jock. Starting May 11, Jarvis goes home to Burlington to become operations manager at the Vox cluster and PD of WEZF, conveniently also on 92.9.

*In the Bangor, MAINE market, WWNZ (1400 Veazie) has dropped late owner Dan Priestly’s news-talk format in favor of classic country as “The Country Road” under new owner Chuck Begin.