NAB's Kaplan Dismisses Arguments of ATSC 3.0 Opponents
Public interest groups, MVPD groups and low-power TV broadcasters opposed to NAB’s petition for a mandatory ATSC 3.0 transition are “protecting their turf” rather than the public interest, said NAB Chief Legal Officer Rick Kaplan in a blog post Monday. Kaplan was responding to a June ex parte filing from the Consumer Technology Association, NCTA, ACA Connects, Public Knowledge, the Advanced Television Alliance and the LPTV Broadcasters Association, which said NAB’s request goes against both the public interest and the Trump administration’s push for deregulation (see 2505090060).
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The groups also told Media Bureau staff and an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr that NAB misrepresented the consensuses reached among the stakeholders in the Future of Television Initiative, NAB’s yearlong task force on the 3.0 transition (see 2501170077).
The ATSC 3.0 opponents are “panicking,” and their arguments are “tired,” Kaplan wrote Monday. He challenged CTA figures showing that 3.0 tech is driving up the cost of TVs and dismissed cable industry concerns about the cost of upgrading. “Innovation is happening and it’s threatening those eager to protect their profits,” he said. “ATSC 3.0 brings flexible, secure, IP-based broadcasting to viewers without the strings of Big Tech.”
Kaplan also pushed back on consumer arguments against encrypting ATSC 3.0 signals. “The objections about digital rights management (DRM) are driven by fear of losing control, not genuine concern for open ecosystems,” he said. “Let’s stop pretending this rag-tag opposition speaks for the public. It’s not clear that NCTA or CTA know what the public interest is.”
"The record is clear: CTA and others are asking the FCC for transparency, choice, and a voluntary transition to ATSC 3.0 -- principles that serve the public, not entrenched interests," said CTA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs David Grossman in an email. "It seems ironic that broadcasters seek another handout from government paid for by all taxpayers when they already squat on broad swaths of spectrum they received for free, and a tiny fraction of Americans even rely on over-the-air broadcast television.”