Friday, January 21, 2011

Spectrum auctions---bringing the pain?

Happened to come across this in my fevered wanderings:
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/fcc-auction.htm/printable
Basically, a description of how spectrum auctions work post 1993.
So is there a possibility to use this as an instrument to punish enemies? Even (or perhaps especially) if a group can't win an auction, it can at least drive up the price that the winners (who are pretty much all your enemies in most cases) have to pay. Might be a terrific opportunity for, say, a Christian broadcaster to economically hurt ABC, CBS, and/or NBC, especially if the rules of said auctions are highly gameable. Most of these organizations aren't terribly profitable as it is. And imagine if said organization happened to win...

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