Latest in TV spectrum

T-Mobile, Dish Network, Comcast, and US Cellular are among the biggest winners of spectrum from the government auction of airwaves currently being used by broadcasters, the FCC said today in a report that officially wraps up the sale process. “There are three big surprises here,” says MoffettNathanson Research’s Craig…

The FCC’s long-running, multi-stage effort to auction spectrum currently used by broadcasters is finally over: Bidders today found out who won specific blocks of the precious airwaves. The FCC is expected to announce the results in April. The process formally began a little more than a year ago, but has been debated…

TV station owners are due to collect about $10 billion, with an additional $7 billion going to the U.S. Treasury, as the FCC today completed the most important steps of its seemingly endless, and endlessly complicated, auction of broadcasters’ airwave spectrum. Wireless broadband providers committed $19.6 billion for…

Wireless broadband companies and TV stations are coming together in their views about how much broadcasters’ airwave spectrum is worth. But they still have a way to go before reaching agreement based on the second round of bidding that closed today in the FCC’s important spectrum auction. Stations indicated that…

TV station owners have to make some decisions over the next few weeks about an important, but unsexy, subject: the value of their airwave spectrum. The FCC’s in the process of auctioning much of it to wireless broadband providers. And today it set September 13 as the opening date for the second round of bidding…

TV stations set a startlingly high price in the FCC’s auction that could allow wireless broadband companies to buy some of the airwave spectrum now used for over-the-air programming. The FCC vowed to pay $86.4 billion for spectrum in the so-called reverse auction to determine the amount stations would accept to give…

Television station owners have more time than some probably ever imagined to decide whether to let wireless broadband providers buy airwave spectrum that they use to transmit programming. The FCC has been working on a voluntary auction for years with plans to have it take place in mid-2015. But today the agency says…

UPDATE, 12:40 PM: NAB chief Gordon Smith warns that the FCC may be disappointed by the number of TV stations that will volunteer to give up their spectrum. “If there’s a stampede coming, we don’t hear any hooves,” he says. And the FCC probably won’t be interested in the rural stations that are most likely to be…

This is a big deal in Washington: The FCC desperately wants TV station owners to give up some of the airwave spectrum they use, so it can be redeployed for wireless broadband. The powerful National Association of Broadcasters is pushing back, skeptical that stations will be pressured to sell. But a report this morning…

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell fired an unexpected shot at Comcast today as the regulatory agency invited the public to comment on a recent deal by the company and other operators to sell airwave spectrum they control to Verizon. Noting that Comcast’s CFO recently told analysts that the cable company never planned…

Television executives plead poverty when they explain why they need cash from cable companies that retransmit the programs stations broadcast for free. But the industry seems to make a miraculous recovery when the topic changes to the FCC’s effort to coax stations to give up their airwave spectrum so it can be…

For those who don’t know, “spectrum” is techno-speak for the airwaves used to transmit TV shows and cell phone calls among other things. And it’s at the center of what is being called one of the biggest telecom lobbying battles of the year. National Association Of Broadcasters chief Gordon Smith told station owners…