Las Vegas -- A broadcasting-technology group plans to ask the Federal
Communications Commission to postpone the scheduled June 19 auction of TV
channels 60 through 69.
David Donovan, president of the Association of Maximum Service Television
(MSTV), said his group would join the wireless-phone industry in seeking the
delay.
MSTV is a small organization with close ties to the National Association of
Broadcasters as a technology adviser on the transition to digital
television.
Donovan said the auction plan was flawed because dozens of analog-TV stations
that would vacate spectrum in channels 60 through 69 are planning to resume
analog operations in the core channels 2 through 52 digital-TV spectrum block
and would likely interfere with digital-TV stations in that band.
Paxson Communications Corp. -- a TV-station owner with several assignments in
the 60-through-69 band -- is opposed to any auction delay. The FCC has already
delayed the auction five times.
'There is no reason to postpone this thing anymore,' Paxson chief operating
officer Dean Goodman said.
Paxson is hoping wireless bidders will pay the company hundreds of millions
of dollars to vacate its 60-through-69 assignments quickly after the auction is
concluded.
Agency officials have said the auction is still scheduled, but commissioner
Kathleen Abernathy recently warned that a delay was possible.
