Monday, January 11, 2010

FCCs Plan for the Expansion of Broadband

The Federal Communications Commission has come up with a plan to expand the spectrum allotted to wireless broadband services. These are the services that provide internet on mobile phones. They want to take a large portion of the spectrum given to Broadcast television and give it to cell phone companies that operate those services. Over the years the FCC has slowly taken away spectrum allotted to TV broadcasting. Until the 1980s television stations could broadcast on any channel from 2 to 83. Then channels 70 and up were taken back and given to cell phone companies. Then during the digital transition channels 52-69 were given to emergency services. Now that the FCC wants to give another significant chunk of the spectrum to mobile internet the National Association of Broadcasters is upset. They are trying to convince the FCC to find another way to give spectrum to the mobile phone companies. They are urging citizens to contact their local congressman to voice their concerns.

Changes to NBC Late Night

Due to low ratings, NBC will move The Jay Leno Show to another time period. NBC says that they don’t want to get rid of Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien. The most likely change is moving Leno back to 11:35PM with a half hour version of The Jay Leno Show. Conan would air at 12:05 and Jimmy Fallon would come on at 1:05. Any changes would take effect after NBC’s coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics which airs at the same time as the regular primetime and late night programming.