ATSC 3.0 Taskforce Members Not Expecting Consensus or Transition Plan
After more than a year of meetings, the NAB-led, FCC-involved ATSC 3.0 task force, the Future of TV Initiative, hasn’t reached consensus on controversial topics, we're told. Its members include broadcasters, cable interests, and consumer and public interest groups. Its first meeting was in June 2023, and it was expected to issue a final report in the fall, yet members told us that it's likely merely to reiterate many of the positions stakeholders held going into the effort. It's also unlikely to provide a firm timeline for the sunset of ATSC 1.0. Just before the initiative's launch, ATSC President Madeleine Noland said the goal was for the diverse group to “chart a path forward together,” and NAB told us the goal was to make concrete recommendations to the FCC by June 2024.
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“We appreciate the FCC helping to set in motion this critical process" an NAB spokesperson said. "As more than 75% of households across the country are now able to access a freely available NEXTGEN TV signal, this initiative has helped surface important issues from various stakeholders."
Announced by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel at the NAB Show in 2023, the Future of TV Initiative was intended to pave the way for the transition to ATSC 3.0. Headed by NAB, the task force includes members from the FCC, NCTA, CTA, Public Knowledge, numerous low and full-power broadcasters, device manufacturers, consumer groups representing the deaf, and others. After a group meeting in June 2023, the members were split into three working groups: Backwards Compatibility, Completing the Transition, and Post-Transition Regulation. The group's meetings are closed to the press, and members told us they’ve been asked not to discuss its work with journalists. Noland, Pearl TV, Bitpath, CTA, ACA Connects, the FCC and other members didn’t comment.
Multiple members of the initiative told us that while meetings have educated the various interests about 3.0 and exposed potential conflicts, stakeholders haven’t moved closer to a consensus about how transitioning away from ATSC 1.0 should play out. Though the group has been a valuable “pressure test” for broadcasters' plans for the transition, it hasn’t moved the parties away from their previously held positions, said Robert Folliard, a task force member and Gray TV senior vice president-government relations and distribution. But Public Knowledge Legal Director John Bergmayer told us the initiative has played out as he expected. “I don't think it's realistic to think that you're just going to get opposing parties in a room and just have them hammer out some compromise agreement,” Bergmayer said. Task forces like the Future of TV Initiative are “good at identifying issues and clarifying the different positions which could be helpful for the FCC down the line” but aren’t “necessarily suited for resolving deep-seated policy differences.”
Digital rights management (DRM) and encryption have remained sticking points during task force meetings, multiple members told us. Broadcasters have said that 3.0 signals need to be encrypted to protect the programming they carry, while groups like Public Knowledge have long argued that encryption can be used for anticompetitive practices, such as limiting the brands of set-top devices consumers use. An online petition against 3.0 encryption sits at 12,000 signatures, and the FCC has received a host of comment submissions arguing that encrypting 3.0 signals goes against the principle of TV broadcasts being free to the public (see 2307130057).
Group members also told us that cable groups remain concerned about what a nationwide transition to 3.0 would require of them. Cable interests have said that modifying their equipment to receive and retransmit ATSC 3.0 signals could be costly, and that they are concerned about being required to make such upgrades before there is a market for 3.0. “The equipment generally used in cable systems today is incapable of supporting ATSC 3.0 and ... in order to provide ATSC 3.0 signals to cable customers, cable operators would need to replace cable system equipment,” NCTA said in a 2021 ex parte filing.
Task force members told us that it also hasn’t seen much movement on the matter of consumers left behind by a 3.0 transition. Rosenworcel and the Media Bureau have repeatedly raised this issue. “We can’t saddle consumers with unworkable sets or big investments,” Rosenworcel said onstage when she announced the task force.
Initiative members told us that a final draft of its conclusions is being worked on and that they expect it will include comments from all interest groups involved, even those disagreeing with broadcasters. The final report is expected to be public and filed with the FCC in the fall, they said. "Ultimately, we just have to rely on the political process and the FCC and the regulatory process to resolve things," Public Knowledge's Bergmayer said. NAB looks forward "to encapsulating the discussions in the upcoming report and addressing remaining issues as the transition continues to unfold," the NAB spokesperson said.