FCC: 99 Bidders Eligible for Forward Auction

As expected, Liberty will not be participating in the spectrum auction.

The FCC released the final list of the 99 parties eligible to bid on TV station spectrum in the forward auction and the five initial applications with issues that were not fixed by the deadline have been rejected.

Those 99 parties have applications deemed complete, which makes them eligible. But they will not be able to participate until they have showed the FCC the money (a sufficient upfront payment). The deadline for that payment has yet to be determined, or at least unveiled, but will be due at least 15 days after the FCC announces what it is.

The reverse auction for TV station spectrum—low bid wins—starts May 31. The forward auction for wireless bidders, and others, can't start until the reverse auction ends.

Also not eligible for the auction—there applications were still incomplete—are Thomas K. Kurian, laboral data systems, Lisa Wendi and G-Wire. Liberty had signaled it did not plan to bid so there was not reason to provide whatever info the FCC needed to make its application complete.

To check out all the qualified bidders, click here.

On March 18, the FCC revealed the applicants to bid on TV broadcast spectrum after it is reclaimed and re-auctioned.

That included 69 completed applications and 35 applications that were in some way incomplete or defective.

Those included names like BlueBird America and Teleguam Holdings but also Liberty and AT&T, and had until April 6 to fix them.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.