The FCC should grant time extensions to stations that need to buy new equipment to comply with the commission’s proposed procedural update to the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act rules, said NAB in comments filed in response to the commission’s November FNPRM on the proposed update (http://bit.ly/1aaVmBV). The proposed changes are prompted by changes in March to the Advanced Television Systems Committee algorithm used to calculate loudness (CD Nov 5 p18). Because the CALM Act legislation references the old standard, the commission proposal would update the language with the new standard. NAB supports the proposed change, and said most stations should be able to follow the proposed new standard with “relatively low-cost software upgrades” within the proposed one-year deadline. However, some stations may need to buy additional equipment, and may need time to do it, since most 2014 budgets have already been finalized, NAB said. The commission should “clarify that it will look favorably on requests for waivers for extensions of time” to comply with the proposed new standards, NAB said.
Comments on the FCC’s proposed procedural updates to the CALM Act’s method for calculating the loudness of commercials are due Dec. 27, replies Jan. 13, said Wednesday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1dBuzWh). The proposal is based on changes in March to the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s (ATSC) recommended practices, which updated the algorithm used to calculate loudness, said an FNPRM requesting comments. Because the old standard is referenced in the CALM Act legislation, the commission is proposing to update it with the new standard.
It’s up to broadcasters to embrace the nascent rollout of mobile DTV, with the expense of adding equipment to transmit to portable consumer electronics using that standard being minor compared with the opportunity cost of not “lighting up,” said advocates of the technology. One backer told us he’s frustrated at the pace of adoption, while others said in interviews last week and at an NAB event that they expect more stations to adopt the technology. “Mobile TV is already available in nearly 40 markets serving approximately 60 percent of the U.S. population,” said NAB incentive auction pointman Rick Kaplan at the event Wednesday. “This is all before mobile TV proponents have ever launched a large-scale coordinated promotional campaign.”
The Advanced Television Systems Committee released an implementation guide (http://bit.ly/17pKvTo) for TV stations to broadcast mobile emergency alert system (M-EAS) messages along with their mobile DTV offerings, said an ATSC news release Wednesday. The new handbook provides instructions on how stations can update broadcast equipment and “demonstrate the new functionality to local emergency management agencies,” said the release. M-EAS “uses Mobile Digital TV to reach viewers with video, text, by sound, and with informative maps, graphics, and instructions,” the release said. The technology generates a banner alert that is displayed by individual devices, and can include supplemental information “as HTML pages, maps and images, and video files,” said the release. Adding M-EAS to a station “can be accomplished at very modest cost,” said ATSC M-EAS Implementation Team Chairman Jay Adrick. The technology doesn’t requires additional radio frequency, uses the Common Alerting Protocol used by government agencies, and also “runs in the background, allowing regular TV programming to continue,” he said.
The FCC is seeking comment on procedural updates to the way the CALM Act calculates the loudness of commercials, the commission said in an order and FNPRM Friday (http://bit.ly/1b7wISy). The move is prompted by changes in March to the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s (ATSC) recommended practices, which updated the algorithm -- called BS.1770-3 -- used to calculate loudness, said the order. Because the old standard is referenced in the CALM Act legislation, the commission is proposing to update the language with the new standard. The change is “designed to prevent advertisers from using silent passages to offset excessively loud passages when calculating the average loudness of program material,” said the order. Once the new standard is implemented, “consumers may notice a modest decrease in the perceived loudness of certain commercials,” said the order. The FNPRM specifically seeks comment on the possible costs that would go along with the technical update, and proposes a one-year deadline to make the change. The order also waives the current CALM Act rules to allow stations to make the switch to the new standard early. In a statement attached to the order, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said the enforcement of the CALM Act should be stepped up. She said the FCC has received nearly 20,000 complaints involving excessively loud commercials. Rosenworcel endorsed a proposal from Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I,, to issue quarterly reports on CALM Act noncompliance. “I believe this will not only facilitate enforcement of our rules -- it could help us put this irritating, persistent problem to rest,” she said.
A contracting antenna industry may combine with the unintended consequences of relocating numerous stations to threaten the FCC’s timeline for repacking broadcast channels after the incentive auction, said several panelists at the commission’s TV Broadcast Relocation Fund Reimbursement workshop on Monday (http://fcc.us/1edUHXd). Although the workshop was ostensibly to gather information on the costs repacking will impose on broadcasters that they would then need to be reimbursed for, out of the $1.75 billion relocation fund, the repacking’s timing was the focus of panelists and other attendees. Panelists said a shortage of crews that do large-scale antenna work, the legal and technical complications of altering existing towers, and the uncertainty preventing the industry from getting ready for those challenges are going to make the repacking very difficult to complete on time. “Until we know the real channel that people are going to occupy, we can do a lot of hocus pocus around what-ifs,” said Sinclair Broadcast Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken. “Three years isn’t enough -- it’s a five- to six-year transition, we need to be planning for that."
Intelsat and Ericsson demonstrated a 4K Ultra HD, end-to-end video transmission over satellite to Turner Broadcasting’s Atlanta facilities. It was the first transmission of a UHD signal over satellite in North America and showed that the satellite delivery chain can accommodate the next-generation signals for broadcasters, Intelsat said in a news release Wednesday. “The whole point of the demonstration was to prove that satellite transponders as they are today are ready to accommodate the bandwidth necessary to transmit 4K over the satellite,” said Peter Ostapiuk, Intelsat’s media product management vice president. “We wanted to prove that the current generation of satellites can support the 4K transmission,” he said in an interview.
There’s very strong “rationale” for seeking global harmonization of a next-generation DTV standard, but it risks delays in implementing ATSC 3.0 or an alternative system, FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake said in an interview Thursday during the Advanced Television Systems Committee annual meeting. That’s another reason he thinks it’s “unrealistic” for the FCC to slow the fast-tracked preparations for an incentive spectrum auction to wait for deployment of ATSC 3.0, as broadcasters have urged, Lake told us, much as he said in his ATSC keynote (CD May 10 p7).
The comparatively low cost of mobile DTV will give terrestrial broadcasters a “significant advantage” over streaming TV services like Aereo, stakeholders said Thursday at the Advanced TV Systems Committee annual meeting. Representatives from mobile DTV providers Dyle and Mobile 500 Alliance said mobile TV technology’s comparatively low cost and reliable coverage was one of several advantages that would keep broadcasters competitive with wireless carriers.
The chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau, William Lake, threw cold water on broadcasters’ recent calls for the commission to delay the incentive spectrum auction and the repacking proceeding that follows to coincide with the deployment of the next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard. “I do urge ATSC and the industry to work as fast as you can and want to on ATSC 3.0,” Lake said Thursday in Q-and-A at the annual meeting of the Advanced TV Systems Committee. “It’s just that I think it’s unrealistic to expect that the incentive auction will slow down to wait."