Spectrum of Greed

You find out how tough your adversaries are when they are backed into a corner.  Such is the place that the NAB finds itself these days, as the FCC works to strip valuable spectrum from the punch drunk broadcast companies and award it to the up and coming challengers in the broadband space.  Gordon Smith started his early rounds with the FCC hearings asking for an objective review of all spectrum, including federal government bands, asking that utilization be carefully reviewed as well.  That was December. 

Fast forward to today.  Gordo was on the rampage. (Thanks to The Hill)

“This sounds about as voluntary as Marlon Brando saying in the Godfather that he wanted either the guy’s signature or his brains on the contract,” said Smith in his keynote speech at NAB’s trade show in Las Vegas.

He really starts reaching when he pulls the porn card:

“Here is the half-facetious irony: if broadcasting loses spectrum and grandma’s new HDTV is rendered useless, at least she will have the consolation of knowing her grandson can get lewd material instantaneously on his cell phone,” he said.

He apparently gets his statistics a bit confused as well, stating this in his December testimony:

“With each additional viewer, a broadcaster’s use of spectrum becomes more efficient, without any additional burden on the spectrum. By contrast, with wireless broadband, each stream of content to every individual places an additional strain on the wireless network, clogging up more bandwidth.” (Thanks to NAB.org)

What he seems to have forgotten is that broadcast television has lost most of it’s viewers to cable over the last 20 years, with broadcast garnering less than 25% of viewers today compared to almost 50% cable. (satellite gets the rest??)  You can see the impact for yourself below, and follow the link to the article for more info.  I don’t think Gordo needs to worry about broadcast becoming more cost effective with trends like what we see here. (Thanks Bill Gorman, TV Ratings)