By Davina Sashkin, CommLawBlog, February 9, 2014
| With the FCC's blessing and help from the wireless industry, two | L.A.-area TV stations set to temporarily cohabit a channel. | | An essential component of the FCC's long-discussed, still-in- | development plan to free up TV spectrum for mobile broadband use | is the concept of channel sharing by television stations. The idea, | which the Commission has been officially studying for more than | three years already, seems relatively straightforward. Thanks to | the efficiency of digital operation, the standard 6-MHz channel | allotted to each TV licensee can accommodate at least two separate | stations. That being the case, in theory the Commission could | retake half of the spectrum currently occupied by TV operations | simply by encouraging each station to shack up with one other | station on a shared channel. | | Nearly two years ago the FCC took a preliminary step by announcing | some initial minimal guidelines to govern such channel sharing. In | the Incentive Auction Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, channel | sharing was expressly identified as one option available to TV | licensees in the spectrum re-packing effort. So the concept of | channel sharing is more than just a glimmer in the FCC's eye.
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Neal McLain