Is Tom Wheeler, President Obama’s nominee to head the FCC, “a wireless guy” who looks down on over-the-air broadcasting? TVNewsCheck perused Wheeler’s blog, titled Mobile Musings, and found some evidence to that effect.
Wheeler, a former lay member of the PBS Board, is the president’s nominee to replace outgoing FCC Chair Julius Genachowski.
In one blog entry, Wheeler writes: “When only 10% of households rely exclusively on over-the-air signals (for TV reception) and digital technology can cram most market’s existing signals into a single license allocation, the question gets asked whether there might be a higher and better use for those airwaves.”
In another: ““Broadcast spectrum is being kept out of the hands of rapid-paced innovators, while those who hold the spectrum appear to be taking their time embracing the opportunities digital presents.”
Entries in the blog, which ran from 2007-12, suggest that Wheeler “wholeheartedly buys the wireless industry’s argument that many broadcasters are wasting their spectrum,” TVNewsCheck noted.