Monty Tayloe

Broadcast attorneys don’t expect seismic shifts in the sports betting and cannabis advertising landscapes soon, according to two virtual sessions convened Monday by the Federal Communications Bar Association. FCC guidance on whether broadcasters can advertise recreational marijuana use “would offer some great clarity,” but the likelihood of the agency issuing it while cannabis is classified as an illegal drug “is absolutely zero,” Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David O’Connor said. Orrick attorney Behnam Dayanim said, “It’s looking grim, at least in the immediate future” for shifts toward legalizing sports betting in states that haven’t already done so, such as Texas and California. Dayanim represents sports betting company Draft Kings.

Nearly six months into a yearlong effort, members of NAB-led, FCC-involved ATSC 3.0 task force on the Future of TV Initiative (FTI) (see 2306090043) told us it will likely shift to delving into specific issues after spending early meetings covering 3.0 basics. Digital rights management (DRM) and encryption for ATSC 3.0 signals have become an early point of disagreement at working group meetings, but participants we spoke with said the process was largely collegial and praised the task force's diversity. “If we don’t have any tough conversations, we’re not doing it right,” said NAB Associate General Counsel Patrick McFadden, who oversees the task force.

Broadcast TV executives are bullish on the future of retransmission consent but are seeing varying levels of softness in the advertising market, they said on Q3 earnings calls this month. Nexstar and E.W. Scripps have experienced softness in the national advertising market, which Scripps CEO Adam Symson ascribed to macroeconomic headwinds. “We’re seeing no sign -- by region or market -- of any kind of recession,” said Gray Television co-CEO Hilton Howell in Gray’s call last week.

FCC and industry officials don’t expect a 2018 Quadrennial Review vote by the Dec. 27 deadline ordered by the D.C. Circuit (see 2309290056) and the item isn’t expected to be part of the December meeting agenda, they said in interviews this week.

Broadcasters, wireless companies and alerting equipment manufacturers are concerned about the potential costs of increasing cybersecurity regulations on emergency alerting participants and the burden of potentially duplicated reporting requirements across multiple federal agencies, they told the FCC and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Monday at a public roundtable event on alerting cybersecurity. The event included local government public safety agencies, the FBI and cybersecurity companies and featured discussion of potential threats to alerting infrastructure and the need for transparency around cyberattacks alongside potential regulatory burdens. “WEA is a voluntary program,” said CCIA General Counsel Angela Simpson. “There is a straw that will break the proverbial camel’s back at some point.”

NEW YORK -- Regulatory opposition to media consolidation is more religion than policy, the conflict over virtual MVPDs is an existential threat for local news, and 5G broadcast is an inferior technology, said broadcast executives at the NAB Show New York Wednesday during TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future Conference. Creating artificial competition in markets that can’t sustain it results in worse newsrooms and poor job conditions for journalists, said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley. It's “challenging” to see any regulatory relief on media ownership coming from the current FCC administration, he said. “I think it's very difficult from a sustainability standpoint to have four to five or six producers of news in a single market,” said Allen Media CEO Princell Hair.

NEW YORK, NY -- The streaming industry is headed for consolidation, but executives disagree over whether it should embrace cable-style bundling, according to panelists at the NAB Show New York’s Streaming Summit Tuesday. “Cable was a great product, people just didn’t want to pay for it anymore,” said Greg Barnhard, Vizio director-content acquisitions and strategy. After a streaming service has spent “an insane” amount of time and effort to create premium content, it shouldn’t “devalue” that content by sticking it in a bundle, said Archana Anand, chief business officer for South Asian content streaming service Zee5 Global.

NAB, broadcasters and tech groups don’t agree whether LG’s withdrawal from the ATSC 3.0 device market (see 2310060068) is a signal the FCC should police patent licensing for 3.0 tech, according to reply comments filed in docket 16-142 by Monday’s deadline. LG’s decision “should be viewed as an unfortunate data point in a marketplace that is still in the process of developing, not as an invitation to unprecedented and overbroad Commission regulation,” said NAB. “LG will almost certainly be only the first of many manufacturers to have no choice but to forego integration or production of ATSC 3.0 technology-based products,” said electronics firm Continental Automotive Systems (CAS). Leaving the patent issue unaddressed by the FCC “is ultimately an existential threat to successful and widespread ATSC 3.0 adoption,” CAS said.

A draft order on expanding audio description requirements to all U.S. broadcast markets within 10 years is expected to be unanimously approved at Thursday’s FCC commissioners’ open meeting with few changes, said agency and industry officials. Though broadcasters asked for concessions and objected to proposals to expand audio description in the past (see 1904020059), they have been largely quiet this time around. The draft order’s docket,11-43, hasn’t had an ex parte filing on the proposal since May.

FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington sat down with Communications Daily last week to discuss his new role as a minority commissioner, the agency’s relationship with the NTIA, and his thoughts on proposals to reopen the record on virtual MVPDs and increase the agency’s collection of EEO information from broadcasters. Following are Simington's lightly edited responses.