O'Rielly Blasts NAB Push for Mandatory ATSC 3.0 Transition
The FCC requiring a mandatory ATSC 3.0 transition would “emulate Soviet-era politicos” and amount to “blatant market meddling" for “dubious benefits,” wrote former FCC Commissioner and Free State Foundation Adjunct Senior Fellow Michael O’Rielly in a post Wednesday. O’Rielly compared broadcaster plans to generate revenue from their spectrum using ATSC 3.0 datacasting to “side hustles" and to “allowing mailmen to use U.S. postal trucks to deliver Christmas trees.” Even if a 3.0 datacasting business materializes, “remember that the government would be allowing broadcasters to leverage the spectrum that they use to offer these services for private gain and far afield from providing broadcast services to the public. Is this the best use of a scarce resource?” O’Rielly asked.
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As an FCC commissioner, O’Rielly was seen as an advocate for ATSC 3.0 and voted for several orders related to datacasting. In April 2020, he praised 3.0 datacasting and vowed to protect 3.0 from burdensome rules. “For commercial stations considering whether to adopt the ATSC 3.0 standard, the prospect of new and innovative business cases that exist outside of our Neolithic media regulation paradigm -- such as the national and local ownership caps -- is certainly an exciting option,” he said then.
In Wednesday’s post, O’Rielly said he's a friend of broadcasting, and policymakers should allow 3.0 to transition “naturally and voluntarily to determine if consumers even want it.” NAB’s push for a mandatory transition is “completely counter to the deregulatory vision outlined by the Trump Administration for the U.S. video marketplace,” he added. “Let’s hope the Trump Administration says no.”