NAB: ‘FCC Staff Deserves Considerable Credit For Getting Us to This Point’

Oh whatta difference a week makes! If NAB’s open letters to the FCC were accompanied by background music, yesterday’s 350-word note titled simply “It Begins” from EVP/Legal and Regulatory Affairs Rick Kaplan to all at the FCC celebrates the start of the FCC Reverse spectrum auction and would be read with the gentle harp sounds of Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” Contrast that with NAB Associate General Counsel Patrick McFadden’s March 23, bombastic missive of 1,012 words headlined “Time to Stick to the Facts and Find the Right Answer,” a response to what NAB characterized as “repeated disingenuous comments” by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler that NAB initially supported a 30-month “repacking” timeframe for TV stations to relocate to another channel after the incentive auction. That letter’s soundtrack might have easily been Steppenwolf’s thunderous and raucous 1968 counter-culture hit, “Born To Be Wild.”
Continue Reading