The FCC should include broadcasting and ATSC 3.0 in consideration of actions to accelerate deployment of 5G-related services, said One Media President Mark Aitken and Executive Vice President-Legal Affairs Jerald Fritz in a meeting Thursday with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly. “The ATSC 3.0 standard was designed to be part of the 5G ecosystem,” said A filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. ATSC 3.0 “will permit broadcasters to provide efficient services needed as part of a robust 5G distribution chain,” said the Sinclair affiliates.
Though anticipated deployment of ATSC 3.0 on a national scale was the talk of NAB Show New York (see 1810170047), the standard is “not part of the conversation” among investors, said an analyst there Thursday. “I’m talking to people who live and die by their spreadsheets,” and 3.0 now is a “blank sell,” said Marci Ryvicker, Wolfe Research's new managing director (see 1810120003) and self-described “mouthpiece for Wall Street.” Investors she works with typically “plug numbers” into their spreadsheets, “and out pops a value,” said the former Wells Fargo managing director. “Right now, what we’re putting in for ATSC 3.0 is nothing.” She knows "there’s going to be a value. I have no idea what that value is, so we’re sort of waiting.” Many on Wall Street will be “waiting to see how the TV industry is transformed” as the result of 3.0, said Ryvicker. “There’s a lot of hope that this is going to transform an industry” that many there think “is dying,” she said. “There’s a lot of life that can be breathed into the industry.” Ryvicker’s big 3.0 worry is that “by the time this is out, and we’re using it, have we moved on to some other technology?" She also thinks 3.0 technology “could be awesome, but if the content isn’t there, it doesn’t matter.”
An outspoken metropolitan New York specialty AV retailer confronted Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle during Q&A of an NAB Show New York ATSC 3.0 workshop Thursday by opining that the standard won’t fly with consumers unless broadcasters use it to beam live sports and other content in Ultra HD. “What people want from the owned and operated network stations is 4K HDR, and when you deliver that, it will be instantly successful to the many millions and millions of people who have sets waiting,” said Robert Zohn, president of Value Electronics in Scarsdale, New York.
Lack of a final decision from Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel on the Sinclair/Tribune hearing designation order won't slow or affect Sinclair merger and acquisition efforts, CEO Chris Ripley told us after speaking at NAB Show New York Thursday. Sinclair is “focused” on more consolidation in broadcast TV, and on adjacent growth avenues such as regional sports networks, cable and digital offerings, Ripley said.
Heads of TV station groups and broadcast alliances banded together onstage Wednesday at the NAB Show New York to announce a “collaborative effort” committing to launch coast-to-coast ATSC 3.0 services to the U.S. public over the next several years.
Raising the 39 percent national ownership cap to 60 or 70 percent but adding a sunset clause that would require further consideration after a few years could be a way for the FCC to relax the cap in a fashion more politically palatable than getting rid of it, said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook on a panel at NAB Show New York Wednesday. Sook told us he believes FCC Chairman Ajit Pai intends to act, but it's also possible the Pai FCC won't get around to it.
ASPEN, Colo. -- Chairman Ajit Pai defended his goals at the FCC, centering on broadband and closing the digital divide, before tech and telecom executives who laughed at his frequent jokes poking fun at himself. On a road trip to see broadband deployment and ATSC 3.0's rollout, he visited the Technology Policy Institute conference Tuesday for a Q&A. He said the Trump administration’s question about FCC review of Sinclair buying Tribune was appropriate, that an inspector general report on filing glitches bore out the agency’s and not critics’ contentions, and that a much-awaited economics office -- focus of a TPI panel last year (see Notebook at end 1708220036) -- still is coming. Ex-Chairman Tom Wheeler disagreed with Pai that the White House query on Sinclair/Tribune paled in comparison with then-President Barack Obama weighing in on an earlier net neutrality proceeding.
The administrative law judge proceeding on Sinclair buying Tribune “must go forward” despite the deal’s dissolution, ex-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler blogged Tuesday. The hearing should continue to allow Sinclair to present evidence on its behalf and demonstrate FCC independence in the face of President Donald Trump’s tweet condemning the hearing designation order, Wheeler said. Tribune announced the collapse of the deal and a related lawsuit against Sinclair last week (see 1808090042). Trump's use of “such pejorative and judgmental terms” means the agency “has a responsibility to uphold the honor and integrity of its processes and not to allow a shadow to hang over its proceedings,” Wheeler said. “President Trump has hung a cloud over the FCC.” Attorneys for Sinclair wrote a letter to the general counsel of the Brookings Institution arguing the company didn’t deceive the FCC in response to a previous blog of Wheeler’s, he said (see 1807250057). Deciding whether to continue with the hearing is a “legacy defining decision,” for current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Wheeler said. Pai's choosing “a backroom consent decree deal” over a hearing would leave “serious unanswered questions,” Wheeler said. “How will the Commission treat Sinclair’s future transactions, its petitions to renew existing licenses when they expire, its future retransmission consent negotiations with cable operators that rely on good faith, or the new ATSC 3.0 television standard that it sponsors?” After taking “a victory lap for being tough on oversight,” Pai has to choose between giving “a pardon to the friend of the president” or continuing the hearing, Wheeler said. Sinclair didn’t comment.
The FCC should allow Educational Broadband Service licensees to apply for additional open spectrum, said America’s Public Television Stations and CPB in an ex parte filing in docket 18-120 Wednesday. “The current licensing scheme has enabled public television stations to provide distance learning services to millions of Americans, including those in remote areas of the country,” APTS said in a release. The FCC should “issue new EBS licenses to qualified educational entities, most assuredly including local public television stations,” said APTS CEO Patrick Butler in the release. The "extraordinary technological achievement" of the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard "will allow public television stations with EBS licenses to offer extraordinary new educational possibilities,” he said.
Sinclair’s proposed deal with Tribune is expected to break up Thursday, but Sinclair executives didn’t comment on the transaction during an earnings call Wednesday, though Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said an update would be coming “soon.” Under Tribune’s agreement with Sinclair, passing Wednesday’s deadline allows Tribune to walk away from the deal without suffering a breakup fee, attorneys and analysts told us. Wednesday was also the deadline for parties to file notices of appearance in the administrative law judge proceeding, and those filings could provide a clue to whether Sinclair intends to battle the allegations against it, attorneys said. Tribune announced Wednesday it was set to hold an 8 a.m. conference call Thursday, before the opening of the stock market.