The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reportedly been awarded a coveted Emmy® Award from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Whaaaattt?
According to a press release by the Commission, the Emmy Award was announced in late February as part of the Academy’s 75th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards. The FCC’s Emmy was awarded under the category of “Spectrum Auction Design” in recognition of the Commission’s “creativity and engineering design of the FCC’s Broadcast Incentive Auction.”
The FCC’s Broadcast Incentive Auction allowed over-the-air television stations around the country to give back unutilized and underutilized broadcast spectrum in return for incentive payments. The FCC says that the freed-up spectrum was then auctioned to wireless carriers, providing them with much-needed spectrum capacity to expand access to 5G and other broadband services.
In its press release, the FCC notes that its Incentive Auction Task Force and Task Force public and private partners have won other awards for their work, including the 2018 Edelman Award for Outstanding Use of Operations Research and Data Analytics by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Also, Evan Kwerel, senior economic advisor to the FCC, was a recipient of the Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement Medal for his work on FCC’s auctions, awarded by the Partnership for Public Service.
Read the FCC’s press release on the Commission’s receiving an Emmy Award.
