NAB's November FCC petition for clarification of ATSC 3.0 multicast rules is seen as making slow progress (see 2105280035), broadcast industry officials told us. A workaround developed by broadcasters and the Media Bureau requires some 3.0 stations to request special temporary authority every six months, and the bureau has granted 34 STA requests, said Media Bureau Legal Adviser Evan Morris on an FCBA webinar Tuesday.
Big TV groups remain interested in buying other ones, but opportunities are rare and purchases of individual stations in full-power TV and radio are at a crawl, said analysts, broadcasters and brokers in recent interviews. “All the low-hanging fruit has been picked,” said S&P Global analyst Volker Moerbitz. With the industry consolidated and ownership rules unlikely to loosen, that likely won’t change soon, said BIA Advisory Services Chief Economist Mark Fratrik: “It’s a natural evolution.”
The FCC “missed” by not defining streaming services as MVPDs and should correct that, said Hearst TV President Jordan Wertlieb at TV2025 on a virtual panel Thursday with Fox TV Stations CEO Jack Abernethy and Gray Television President Pat LaPlatney. “If we want to be intellectually honest, anyone distributing our signal is an MVPD,” Wertlieb said. The executives discussed their own streaming offerings but said broadcasting still delivers a larger audience than the alternatives. The “biggest indication” of broadcasting’s primacy is the NFL’s commitment to be on Fox into the 2030s, said Abernethy. Skyrocketing political advertising dollars demonstrate the same thing, he said. ATSC 3.0 will eventually allow stations to take full advantage of digital ads, Wertlieb said. Targetable ads will allow broadcasters to charge more, LaPlatney said. Abernethy and Wertlieb believe the most successful streaming operations will be those that focus on a niche, such as Fox’s upcoming weather channel. Hearst’s offering focuses on hyperlocal content for each station’s specific city, Wertlieb said. E.W. Scripps announced a foray into exports Thursday (see 2109230077). Asked about the future of retrans and declining cable subscribership, Wertlieb said the definition of retrans needs to be broadened, and LaPlatney said current rates don’t accurately reflect the audience broadcasters deliver. There might be ways stations could work with MVPDs to address or slow their subscribership declines, said Abernethy. “I do see those two ecosystems working together down the road,” said Wertlieb, saying broadcasters are working closely with MVPDs on ATSC 3.0. The execs expect auto ads to rebound sometime in 2022. Gambling ads are on rising but depend on jurisdiction, said Wertlieb. Betting is “a great category” for stations because it can’t be nationally advertised, Abernethy said.
Measuring TV viewers is expected to get more competitive following Nielsen’s accreditation troubles, and advertising targeting is considered the best way to monetize ATSC 3.0, said panelists at the virtual TV2025 Conference Wednesday. “I could see a time in the future where we start to rethink the value of third-party measurement,” said Publicis Media Senior Vice President-Global Research, Data Sciences Eric Cavanaugh.
An FCC draft order that would create questions for licensees seeking permission to be owned by foreign nationals is expected to change little from its draft version and to be approved unanimously at the agency’s Sept. 30 meeting, said industry experts in recent interviews. “The industry is getting a narrow set of questions,” said Vinson & Elkins' Richard Sofield. “Are they as narrow as they’d like? No, but there is certainty.” DOD, DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security make up Team Telecom, which Sofield used to chair.
The 2021 NAB Show is shifting to a virtual event, and won't convene in-person at the Las Vegas Convention Center Oct. 9-13, the association announced Wednesday. The 2022 NAB Show, set for April 23-27, is still planned to be in-person, NAB said. See our earlier news bulletin here.
The FCC could accede to a request to pause new foreign-sponsored content identification rules, and it's likely broadcasters otherwise will renew the request in court, said broadcast and appellate attorneys in interviews. A stay petition was filed last week by NAB, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters and the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council. They argue the new rules will affect all stations when relatively few air the content targeted by the regulations. The FCC “could easily have achieved its purported objectives and then some with a less burdensome approach,” said the stay request.
The 2021 NAB Show won’t be in-person, NAB said Wednesday. The event had been set for Oct. 9-13 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Microsoft’s petition for reconsideration of relaxed interference rules for distributed transmission systems is “illogical and contrary to the public interest,” said NAB and America’s Public Television Stations in a call with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington Thursday, per a filing posted Monday in docket 20-74. “There is no track record of [TV White Space] TVWS success, or even the potential for success, that would warrant limiting broadcasters’ efforts to improve service to viewers,” the associations said. “Despite Microsoft’s repeated efforts to amplify the purported successes of TVWS deployments ... just 322 TVWS devices [are] authorized in the United States today.” Microsoft didn’t comment. In a separate filing, APTS and NAB targeted replies from Public Knowledge, Tribal Digital Village and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute. New DTS rules don’t give broadcasters new spectrum rights or new protections, the broadcasters said: “Despite the length of the Interest Groups’ comments, they are rife with factual errors and misleading conflations and reflect no effort to engage seriously with the substance of this proceeding.” The groups didn’t comment.
The FCC Media Bureau’s latest report on broadcast ownership, based on data from 2019, shows little change in minority and female ownership from the previous version, which was based on 2017 data but released in 2020 (see 2002140048). "It is essential that we identify ways we can encourage more diversity in this market, including reinstatement of the Minority Tax Certificate Program," said Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in a release Friday. "Today's results from the FCC media ownership report scream that we need to reinstate the diversity tax certificate program." emailed Nicol Turner-Lee, of the Brookings Institution. Eight former FCC chairs echoed her.