FCC's Simington: Broadcast Industry Heading Toward 'Catastrophic Decline'

Absent more FCC action on issues such as ownership and facilitating the ATSC 3.0 transition, the broadcast industry is quickly sliding toward a "period of catastrophic decline," FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington said Thursday. "We can't keep on the current trajectory" of stations closing and licenses falling into disuse, he said at a Media Institute event. The trend line on broadcaster bankruptcies is "a little bit like the beginning of a recession."

Simington said broadcast spectrum can't easily be repurposed, since there's no pathway to replace it and an immense infrastructure around those legacy uses of the bands. In addition, he said the FCC has a responsibility to promote industry continuity through ownership and merger and acquisition reforms and to push the ATSC 3.0 transition as quickly as possible. The national ownership cap needs to be revisited, though the agency is somewhat hamstrung by congressional action in 2004 setting the current cap level, he said, adding that the FCC has a role in presenting the need for change to lawmakers.

Simington mentioned his support for setting a firm date for ending mandatory simulcast of ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 signals and fully transitioning to ATSC 3.0 -- something NAB and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr have also backed (see 2406130045). He said he's somewhat skeptical that enough people would lose service with the ending of ATSC 1.0 signals to justify mandating continued simulcasting.

Concerning dumping broadcast-content policies, including the news distortion rule, Simington said the agency's content policies "might be relics" of 1960s and 1970s regulatory thinking, no longer supported by constitutional jurisprudence or how courts now view administrative agencies. However, there should be a determination of whether broadcast news distortion remains part of the public interest standard broadcasters must follow, he said.

The commissioner is optimistic the cyber trust mark will roll out this year, adding that there are indications of onshoring moves by electronics manufacturers with business in the U.S. The cyber trust mark could help create demand for those products, he said.

Several nations have told the FCC of their interest in finding alternatives to equipment with Chinese ties because of cybersecurity concerns, Simington said, so there could be an "absolutely explosive" demand for cyber trust mark-certified hardware.

While there's not necessarily been a "killer" 5G consumer application, China is using 5G aggressively in building industrial networks, and that might be where 5G's biggest value lies, he said.

Asked about what it would take to get Congress to restore the FCC's lapsed spectrum auction authority, he said there's "a very vigorous debate behind closed doors" among federal agencies about the future of spectrum policy. In the meantime, there might be value in considering increasing channel sizes in future spectrum auctions, he said.