Qualcomm Wants to Turn Off Analog TVs
By Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/7/2005 2:37:00 PM
To speed the rollout of its MediaFLO cellphone TV service, Qualcomm has begun striking deals with TV stations occupying channel 55, where it owns rights to use the channel at the end of the digital transition.
Rather than wait until the DTV switch is complete, probably no sooner than 2009, Qualcomm wants ch. 55 vacated as soon as possible.
Qualcomm's first agreements are with owners of WACX Orlando, Fla., and KWDK Tacoma, Wash.
Qualcomm has agreed to compensate both the Associated Christian Television System, owner of the Orlando station, and Puget Sound Educational TV, owner of the Tacoma outlet, according to a lawyer handling the deals. The size of Qualcomm’s offer is confidential.
The agreement is contingent on the current owners winning FCC permission to stop broadcasting on ch.55 and operate digital-only on ch. 40 in Orlando and on 42 in Tacoma.
Talks between Qualcomm and other broadcasters are under way.
Qualcomm paid the FCC $38 million for future rights to channel 55 nationwide at an auction conducted by the FCC last summer, but it can't gain access in any market where a broadcaster is operating on the channel or where MediaFLO would create interference to stations on adjacent channels.
Whether MediaFLO has potential to interfere with TV reception in the Orlando and Tacoma markets is expected to be a major issue in the FCC review of the deals.
To accommodate the federal government's drive to move all broadcasters to digital-only operation, the FCC plans to reclaim chs. 52-69 from broadcasting and auction the frequencies to wireless companies and other providers of new communications services.
Other channels in the 52-59 range have already been auctioned in some markets, but most have yet to be put on the block. A bill pending in the House would require the remaining channels to be auctioned in 2008.
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