During his inaugural state of the industry address and at the television luncheon, new NAB president Gordon Smith stressed upon two key issues for broadcasters this year: retransmission consent and the National Broadband Plan, which aims to take away broadcast spectrum to turn it over to wireless broadband companies.
Citing a $15 billion expenditure by broadcasters to do the digital transition, during which broadcasters returned more than a quarter of the TV spectrum, Smith’s concern is that the currently proposed broadband plan would “yank away” another “third of the spectrum used for TV broadcasting so that wireless companies can have more.” He called the plan “unnecessary government intervention” and asked all broadcasters to call their representatives to speak against it.
In his words, “this spectrum reallocation is bad for consumers and bad for broadcasters.”
