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KCETLink and the Los Angeles Unified School District have struck a deal on a channel sharing partnership. The two stations will continue to operate separately but they will "share a single, over-the-air broadcast television channel," while auctioning off unneeded bandwidth and splitting the proceeds. No further details: here's how Variety covers it and what KCET says below.
KCETLink and KLCS Announce Channel Sharing PartnershipBURBANK AND LOS ANGELES, CA - September 10, 2014 – KCETLink, the national independent public media organization, and KLCS, the public educational television station licensed to the Los Angeles Unified School District and member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), have entered into a channel sharing partnership in an effort to participate in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voluntary spectrum incentive auction.
Yesterday, KCETLink’s Board and the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, which holds the license to KLCS, unanimously approved a memorandum of understanding to move forward with the agreement.
The two stations will “share” a single, over-the-air broadcast television channel, offering to surrender 6 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum to the FCC, which will be sold in the government’s spectrum auction. Both KCET and KLCS will continue to operate under separate non-commercial, educational television broadcast licenses.
The announcement comes after KLCS’ successful pilot channel sharing partnership with KJLA—also known as LATV---which occurred during Q1 2014.
“We are pleased to forge this bold partnership with KLCS and chart new waters together,” said Al Jerome, KCETLink’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We will certainly benefit from KLCS’ test program and appreciate the station’s leadership. We feel the spectrum auction is a great opportunity to potentially gain significant resources that we can reinvest into programs and activities we provide to the community in support of our mission.”
“With our proven track record of success, we know that technology allows us to continue to offer high-quality public media content over the air without compromising the viewer experience,” said Sabrina Fair Thomas, KLCS’ General Manager. “We’re thrilled to be able to move forward in the collaborative nature that the CPB had intended for this type of initiative, and we are confident that KCET is a great partner to fully leverage our combined technological acumen, while maintaining the integrity of our respective licenses and identities.”
According to a report from the CPB, the FCC is planning to hold the voluntary spectrum incentive auction in mid-2015 in which television stations will be able to bid on surrendering their licenses, moving from a UHF channel to one in the VHF band or sharing a different channel with other stations, in exchange for cash.
