mysticnitekatt said:
It depends.
Stations that are willing to yield up part of their current 6 MHz of spectrum will have the option of finding another local broadcaster that's also interested in yielding up part of its spectrum. In that scenario, both stations (or even more than two, depending) will share a transmitter and an RF channel, but each will retain its own FCC license with all the obligations that attach to it (and all the must-carry privileges, too) - and each station will share a portion of the auction revenues from the spectrum thus freed up.
Stations willing to leave the air completely would surrender their licenses in exchange for a larger portion of auction revenue, and I believe they'd still retain some degree of cable must-carry, though I'm not sure what the latest ruling on that issue is. In that scenario, the license is cancelled and the allocation deleted. If WMFP surrenders its license, nobody else can apply for RF 18; in practice, the FCC would use that channel for "repacking" by moving someone else from a higher channel down to 18.
There may also be some auction revenue available for stations willing to move from UHF to VHF; one can (hypothetically!) imagine WWDP surrendering its license, freeing up VHF 10; a middling-successful UHF signal might then take in some auction $ in exchange for moving from UHF to 10, and a UHF channel would then be freed up for broadband...or so the FCC hopes.
As long as the FCC sticks to its stated policy that no station will be forced to share spectrum, give up its license or move from U to V, I suspect less spectrum will be freed up than the regulators are hoping for.
