November 5, 2008-- Yesterday the FCC struck a serious blow to the right of every resident in our country to continue to receive interference-free, local television, by authorizing manufacturers from all over the world to flood the United States with millions and millions of unlicensed, portable devices that will occupy the television band thereby causing harmful interference.

The collateral damage from the FCC’s action extends beyond you as a television viewer and includes our nation’s President, our Governor, our State’s Emergency Management Authority, our police and fire authorities and our AMBER Alert program, all of which rely chiefly on local broadcasters to reliably disseminate interference-free life saving information during times of national, regional, state and local emergencies.

Notwithstanding unprecedented opposition to the FCC’s rush to judgment, the Commission has voted to allow millions of devices to spread into every nook and cranny of America threatening harmful interference to as many as 100 million households who watch TV, on average, more than 8 hours per day.

All we asked the FCC to do before holding a vote was to follow its customary practice of inviting public comment on a very complex 400-page report upon which the FCC’s vote would hinge, a report that purports to claim these devices can exist without causing harmful interference even though the FCC’s own engineers state repeatedly that these devices may not or do not work.

Not only are companies like Google and Microsoft placing at risk our state’s emergency broadcast system, they are doing so in a way that exempts them from having to pay for their use of the spectrum.

Why should companies like Google and Microsoft get these airwaves for free?  Other pieces of the broadcast spectrum have been auctioned off.  Our country is running a possible trillion dollar deficit. Is it too much to expect that Google and Microsoft, to name a few, bid for spectrum that’s been valued at upwards of $20 billion.

In addition to the state and local emergency management and AMBER Alert centers, on broadcasters’ side are labor unions, minority organizations, Nevada gaming interests, rural groups, cable operators, recording artists, TV manufacturers, the New York City Council, professional sports leagues from the NFL to NBA, religious leaders and dozens of members of Congress.  The vote was more than a rush to judgment; it was an abdication of the FCC’s statutory trust – a decision made without any genuine regard for protecting lives and property of our residents.

West Virginia broadcasters are very disappointed that the FCC appears to be blithely playing Russian Roulette with citizens’ ability to continue receiving clear and uninterrupted television pictures. We will continue to fight on behalf of our viewers to ensure West Virginia television stations can continue providing quality news, entertainment and critical emergency information – free of interference.”