Elimination of PBS Funding Could Affect ATSC 3.0 Transition
The elimination of federal funding for PBS stations would be a blow to the ATSC 3.0 transition, said commercial and noncommercial broadcasters and advocates for public TV stations and 3.0. The transition would survive the loss of PBS station participation, but removing it from the equation would affect the reach of 3.0 datacasting, emergency communications and the broadcast positioning system (BPS), commercial broadcasters told us.
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“I would hate to lose the coverage of PBS,” said John Hane, CEO of BitPath, a broadcaster-owned 3.0 datacasting consortium. “It’s not make or break for the commercial stations. But it would be a travesty for those stations to go dark.”
Lobbyists noted continued doubts Friday that Senate GOP leaders would move the House-passed 2025 Rescissions Act (HR-4) without jettisoning language supported by President Donald Trump to claw back $1.1 billion of CPB’s advance funding for FY 2026 and FY 2027 (see 2506030065). Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins of Maine and several other panel Republicans last week voiced opposition to rescinding CPB’s funding or concerns about how it would affect rural areas (see 2506250058). The House narrowly passed HR-4 earlier this month despite misgivings from some Republicans about the CPB rescission (see 2506130025).
PBS stations are sometimes the only TV signal in remote areas of the country, and while commercial broadcasters tend to cluster around population centers in their markets, public TV stations are more far-flung and focused on universal coverage. "There are some PBS stations that are the only game in town,” said Advanced Television Systems Committee President Madeleine Noland in an interview. That matters to 3.0 advocates because two of the new standard’s most promising applications -- nationwide datacasting and a much-needed backup for GPS -- would be greatly aided if ATSC 3.0 signals covered as much of the U.S. as possible. PBS’ signal coverage “is an incredibly valuable asset” to the 3.0 transition, said Mark Aitken, president of One Media, Sinclair Broadcast’s 3.0-focused subsidiary. NAB didn't comment.
Public TV stations have been an integral part of 3.0’s development, broadcasters told us. America’s Public Television Stations -- along with NAB and the Consumer Technology Association -- was one of the groups behind the original petition for rulemaking that led to the FCC authorizing broadcasters to begin service in ATSC 3.0. While far fewer public TV stations have transitioned to 3.0 compared with their commercial brethren, they're “an essential part of the host station backbone in key markets, including Washington, D.C., and New York City,” said Noland. PBS station WHUT-TV Washington, D.C., for example, has been key in the early development of BPS, broadcasters told us. Such participation is important enough to the spread of 3.0 that commercial broadcasters such as Sinclair have provided public TV broadcasters with virtual, internet-only ATSC 3.0 channels so they can begin offering programming in the new standard.
“Having nationwide coverage is an important element [for the transition], and the only way you get nationwide coverage, particularly in those rural areas that have been underserved, is with public television,” said APTS President Kate Riley in an interview. Rescission proposals being debated in Congress could remove 70% of the federal funds that go to local stations, she said, which would have “a devastating impact” on local PBS stations, including layoffs and content going off the air.
Elimination of or steep drops in federal funding would make it much harder for PBS stations to devote resources to ATSC 3.0, Riley said. The PBS stations covering smaller, more rural areas would be “the most negatively affected by a loss of federal funding because they don’t have the same population to raise additional funds from.”
Vincent Curren of the Public Media Venture Group said “there's no doubt” that the loss of federal funding would lead to some public TV stations going dark. If that happens, commercial broadcasters invested in datacasting and BPS projects would need to find “some alternate method of delivering bits in places where there are public television stations now where there may not be in the future.”
PBS stations are also an important part of plans to use ATSC 3.0 to enhance emergency alerting, said Dave Arland, executive director of both the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance and the Indiana Broadcasters Association. Public television stations are the “backbone” of emergency alerting in states like Kentucky and North Carolina, Arland said. At the recent ATSC NextGen Broadcast Conference, PBS New Mexico gave a presentation on its trial program providing detailed emergency maps on its 3.0 station and discussed plans to offer alerts in Navajo to better serve residents of the reservation in its coverage area (see 2506120088). "Certainly we can have as a country this political debate about content. But there's a technical ingredient here, too, that's very important,” Arland said. “And there are people who depend on the backbone of public broadcasting to stay safe, and that is something that should not be forgotten.”