Last week, two coalitions of high-tech companies announced their support for a mandatory timeline for broadcast television stations to abandon their analog licenses. The groups support a statutory deadline of the end of 2006 proposed by Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Many firms, including some endorsing Mr. Barton’s deadline, would like to use the broadcasters’ analog spectrum. If the economics of broadcast licenses were simple, the private broadcasters would sell their licenses to the private buyers.

In the world of broadcast television, nothing is simple. Broadcasters have two licenses: one temporarily for continued analog transmission and one for digital transmission. Everyone agrees that the analog signal will someday cease; the disagreement is the date.

In 1997, Congress passed a law mandating the transition to broadcast digital television from what was then a purely analog system. Digital signals use less spectrum for the same quality of signal to consumers increasingly accustomed to digital devices. The FCC reorganized the television broadcast spectrum into three groups: one in the VHF and lower UHF band for the permanent assignment of new digital broadcast signals, one for analog-only signals in the upper UHF band, and one large segment in between that have both interim analog and digital licenses.

The 1997 law proposed an end date for analog signals of 2006 if a certain percentage of television sets in a geographic area can receive digital signals. That condition has not and may never be met.

Most observers foresee a digital transition in which the federal government plays the primary role. The government mandates a return of the analogs licenses, litigates for years to ensure their complete return, and auctions the returned spectrum. The government becomes a TV star.

It is relatively easy to see a path for the government to clear analog licenses in the upper UHF band. Far more complicated is the resolution of the middle range of the analog spectrum, where many broadcasters broadcast both in analog and, at least temporarily, in digital format. How and when this spectrum will be cleared is problematic.

The 1997 law also required that the FCC auction the rights to large parts of the spectrum for the analog television signals by 2001. Congress assumed receipts of billions of dollars from those auctions to be held five years later as part of its “balanced budget” in 1997. Those auctions have yet to occur.

Curiously enough, advocates of a hard date for the transition to digital television now claim that auctions will raise more than $30 billion for the federal government. But much of these receipts are for the same auctions that the FCC failed to hold in 2001. Whether the forecasts are accurate, even 1990s accountants would not count twice the receipts for an auction that the federal government already credited itself nearly 10 years ago.

Broadcasters have no incentive to turn off their analog signals. Potential purchasers never negotiate with the broadcasters; instead they plead with the federal government to pass laws to condemn the broadcasters’ use of the spectrum.

While the analogy is not entirely accurate, the federal government is asked to condemn one category of privately used spectrum so that the spectrum may be transferred to another group for a different private use, albeit a more efficient use. Condemnation of one private use for a subsequent different private use is not a good use of government resources.

Government regulation such as hard deadlines for the end of analog licenses may yet clear the sparsely used upper portion of the UHF spectrum. But it is difficult to see how such government decrees alone will untangle the complex web of licenses in the middle of the UHF band. The transition would go much more efficiently if the federal government simply let potential buyers negotiate directly with the potential sellers, the broadcasters themselves.

These natural market forces could be put to good use by simply holding the auctions that should have taken place in 2001. Private parties, including the broadcasters themselves, could bid for the exclusive future rights to use the analog television spectrum and to negotiate with the incumbent broadcasters for the transition. Private transactional incentives work well in every other market; they should work in the market for the analog television spectrum as well.

Mr. Barton should trust his deregulatory instincts: spectrum should be governed by market incentives, not excessive regulation.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.