Current (https://current.org/tag/spectrum-auction/)
The interim chancellor of the San Bernardino Community College District is recommending that the district convert its public TV and radio stations into a media training lab by 2023.
The foundation is giving $5.3 million to 11 local nonprofits, including public station WHYY.
The partnership, initiated last fall, extends CP’s educational initiative for high school students and veterans into a third city and the first library location.
The commission declined to reimburse wireless provider T-Mobile and left reimbursing radio stations a lower priority.
The FCC must set reimbursement rules for translators and FM stations by March 23.
“Going forward we generally want to mitigate production risk,” said interim GM Keith Birkfeld.
Bohdan Zachary of Milwaukee PBS testified in Congress Tuesday on the need for consumer education following the spectrum auction.
In comments filed Wednesday, the network said eligible expenses proposed by the FCC “should be considered an initial provisional list of common anticipated expenses rather than a definitive catalog of all eligible reimbursable expenses.”
Local stations “have limited financial and operational resources to absorb the impact of the TV repack,” NPR said in FCC comments.
As part of the reorganization of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting, WCVE President Curtis Monk will leave his position Sept. 14.
Its licensee voted to shut down the station rather than spend $4.4 million to move its channel.
By the time the FCC’s extended filing deadline passed June 1, operators of 688 translators carrying programming of 55 PBS member stations had applied for new channels.
The project marks the “largest non-capital investment that PBS39 has ever made,” according to the station.
The wireless carrier and a team from PBS are working under tight deadlines to find new homes for public TV translators that are being displaced by the FCC’s repack of TV channels.
The owner of MHz Networks’ WNVC and WNVT sold the stations’ spectrum in last year’s FCC auction.
PBS and America’s Public Television Stations warn that more stations could follow suit.
The repack work “threatens the survival of our public radio service as well as the health of our cultural community and economy,” said All Classical Portland CEO Suzanne Nance.
The Minority Television Project is in talks with Poquito Mas Communications LLC.
The bill would provide the FCC with an additional $322 million per year in fiscal years 2019 and 2020.
The stations will share PBS39’s spectrum starting Jan. 5 until the FCC approves the license transfer.