President-elect Joe Biden announces he's naming Neera Tanden, Center for American Progress, who "would be the first woman of color and first South Asian American to lead the OMB," and Kate Bedingfield, ex-MPA, White House communications director, a job she did for the Biden-Kamala Harris campaign ... Sinclair’s One Media 3.0 hires So Vang from NAB as vice president-emerging technologies ... BTIG adds Chris Dorn as managing director, Healthcare Investment Banking, where he will focus on healthcare IT and digital health companies.
“The profusion of crystal-clear, widescreen digital HDTV sets in almost every American home and office, we just take for granted today,” former FCC Chairman Richard Wiley told a commemorative industry Zoom call Monday. Wiley chaired the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service for 12 years. Saturday was the 25th anniversary of ACATS' final report to the commission, recommending adoption of the Grand Alliance HDTV system as “better than any of the four original” DTV proposals and “superior to any known alternative system.” Wiley doubts ATSC 3.0 “would be possible were it not for the work of the Grand Alliance and the advisory committee,” he said. What “really surprised” Wiley about the Grand Alliance proposal “was how much opposition we got from government and business leaders,” he said. “It all seems still very odd to me,” he said: “Yet all the credit” should go to ACATS and Grand Alliance members “who just continued to plod along and do your work, criticism notwithstanding, and stayed the course and made HDTV a reality.”
Comments are due Dec. 24 on NAB’s petition to clarify how multicast streams of TV stations simulcasting in the ATSC 3.0 transition will be treated under FCC licensing rules, said a public notice Tuesday. NAB wants the FCC to clarify that in such arrangements, the licensee originating the programming, not the host station, is responsible for that content. Some stations have concerns about which station is liable for any potential rule violations, the PN said. Replies are due in docket 16-142 Jan. 25.
Political ad spending in 2024 is likely to exceed 2020's record $8.5 billion, and it's conceivable -- if unlikely -- that spending in the Senate runoff in Georgia alone could reach $1 billion, Gray Television President Pat LaPlatney told the Media Institute. LaPlatney said most projections for the runoff are $200 million, but “it’s 2020; anything can happen.” Numbers that seemed “aggressive” before the 2020 race “have all been exceeded,” he said Monday.
The FCC released the three draft items Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing for the Dec. 10 meeting (see 2011180065). The meeting will be headlined by a report and order implementing the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, with an NPRM on equipment certification rules and an order on ATSC 3.0 datacasting. Industry officials said it's unclear whether FCC Democrats will consider any of the drafts controversial or major items that should be left for next year under the new commission.
5G security is the major focus of the FCC’s Dec. 10 meeting, Ajit Pai said Wednesday. The chairman released a skinny agenda by recent standards and won't further liberalize rules for Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band, which had looked more in doubt in recent days (see 2011130045). Like the 5.9 GHz order, 6 GHz has been controversial and faced opposition from incumbents unhappy with the April order opening the band. December will also feature an order on ATSC 3.0 datacasting.
5G security is the major focus of the FCC’s Dec. 10 meeting, Chairman Ajit Pai blogged. Pai didn’t propose an expected order further liberalizing rules for Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band, which had looked more in doubt in recent days (see our report here).
“Many more markets” will go live in ATSC 3.0 in Q1, and “by the summer, we’ll hit the top 40,” Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle told us. The broadcast industry’s original plans were to have stations in the top 40 TV markets up and running by year-end, but COVID-19 “put us back a bit,” she said. “I’m proud about the number of stations going up,” including “some big ones” going live with 3.0 in December, she said. Pearl TV and its partners in the Phoenix model market test bed project are poised to launch their first NextGenTV branding campaign to raise consumer awareness of the technology and promote its adoption for when people shop for TVs, Schelle noted. “Markets are launching” with 3.0 services, and it’s time to start engaging consumers, she said. The campaign begins Nov. 25 and runs through mid-January, said Schelle. It touts "stunning video," though Schelle said 4K and HDR likely won't become commercial realities before 2021. Service and device enhancements are inevitable as the launch progresses, said Pearl spokesperson Dave Arland, likening this stage of 3.0's debut to the first quarter of a football game. HDR is “not there yet,” partly due to COVID-19 delays, Schelle said. “You will see, I think in 2021, distribution on the various HDR formats from the networks.” Expect the NextGenTV logo to gain a much more ubiquitous presence after the campaign kicks off, said Schelle. We pored through the LG, Samsung and Sony links on the WatchNextGenTV.com consumer-facing website, plus the Best Buy and Amazon online stores, finding the logo mentioned only on Samsung’s e-commerce site. “That is going to change,” said Schelle. “They just haven’t updated it yet. It’s on their to-do list.” She expects more TV brands to jump into 3.0 at the virtual CES 2021 in January.
Clarify rules for broadcasters using their spectrum for ancillary services though ATSC 3.0, said Public Media Venture Group in a Monday videoconference with FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, per a filing in docket 16-142. PMVG is focused on public TV stations transitioning to the new standard and asked the FCC to change language in rules on how public TV stations use spectrum capacity due to concerns the current wording could interfere with datacasting. PVMG supported FCC proposals to allow distributed transmission systems.
NAB wants the FCC to clarify that among broadcasters working together to host one another’s signals during the ATSC 3.0 transition, “the licensee who originated the programming, rather than the licensee whose facilities are being used to distribute the programming, is responsible for the programming,” said a petition for declaratory ruling and petition for rulemaking posted in docket 16-142 Monday. The FCC should make clear that “its existing regulatory framework for the hosting of simulcast primary programming streams also applies to simulcast multicast streams,” NAB said. NAB also pushed the agency to act expeditiously on a pending NPRM on distributed transmission systems, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in the same docket on a call Thursday with Media Bureau staff. “Certainty regarding this additional flexibility will help broadcasters finalize plans for additional ATSC 3.0 deployments in the coming year,” the filing said.