NAB’s Smith: FCC Myopically Focused on Broadband

National Association of Broadcasters president Gordon Smith says the FCC is "myopically focused" on broadband and getting broadcaster spectrum into the hands of wireless companies, when those companies cannot match the reliability of broadcasting to get critical info "to the masses."

In a speech to the Advanced Television Systems Committee convention in Washington, Smith said the irony was that in the hands of wireless companies, the spectrum could not deliver video as efficiently as broadcasters, and would be charging viewers for a service broadcasters deliver to them for free.

"The focus of the FCC shouldn't be how can spectrum be taken away from broadcasters in order to bolster the wireless industry's goal of developing an architecture with the reach and reliability of ours, but rather, how can we continue to expand broadcasting's robust and efficient architecture to other platforms," he said.

ATSC is the industry group working on a next-generation transmission standard, ATSC 3.0, that would help broadcasting grow with the growth of new delivery systems and platforms.

"Through ATSC, entities such as consumer electronics and broadcast equipment manufacturers, software developers, satellite and cable TV providers, as well as broadcasters, are working together to develop the best roadmap for propelling broadcast television into the future," said Smith.

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.