House Communications Subcommittee members generally signaled Thursday they want to provide additional funding for post-incentive auction repacking, but there was less agreement on the extent to which Capitol Hill should allow exceptions to the 39-month repacking timeline. Three broadcast officials said during a House Communications hearing they want Congress to give additional flexibility on the repacking deadline in cases where circumstances are beyond a station's control. CTIA Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann urged Congress to maintain the 39-month deadline and National Association of Tower Erectors Chairman Jim Tracy said the focus should be on ensuring crews are able to complete the repack safely without regard to the current deadline. Their testimony was expected (see 1709060070).
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The FCC likely will loosen its broadcast ownership rules for top-four TV stations, which could give broadcasters increased leverage and make retransmission consent negotiations with MVPDs tougher, Cowen analyst Paul Gallant emailed investors Wednesday. Broadcaster ability to own two must-have stations in a market "would clearly enhance prospects" in retrans talks, Cowen said, pointing to Time Warner Cable's subscriber losses in its 2013 dispute with CBS (see reports in the Aug. 26 and 30 issues of this publication). Cowen said since Chairman Ajit Pai said MVPD consolidation hurts broadcasters, it's unlikely the FCC would block that greater broadcaster negotiating leverage with limits on joint retrans. It also said broadcast ownership rules changes could lead to station swaps across multiple markets, with numerous broadcast groups ending up with top-four combinations, giving numerous broadcasters more retrans power without going through large-scale deals like Sinclair buying Tribune. The FCC is less likely to change the UHF discount than to address the ownership rules, and seems likely in coming months to OK simulcasting ATSC 3.0 signals, Cowen said: If the agency sticks to not preventing broadcasters from tying 3.0 carriage to 1.0 carriage, that could also make retrans talks -- including issues of buying equipment and devoting bandwidth to ATSC 3.0 channels -- with MVPDs more tense. Gallant said agency approval of Sinclair/Tribune without conditions limiting joint retrans seems likely, though that might not come this year.
CTIA supports maintaining the existing 39-month timeline for completing post-incentive auction spectrum repacking and believes any delay of that process would have “cascading consequences,” Vice President-Regulatory Affairs Scott Bergmann plans to tell the House Communications Subcommittee during a Thursday hearing. CTIA also supports a “fully-funded repack that ensures broadcasters are made whole for reasonable costs,” but Congress didn't intend the Broadcaster Relocation Fund to “cover the costs of a technology upgrade” like a transition to ATSC 3.0, Bergmann said in written testimony. Congress and the FCC should ensure the 3.0 transition “is not used to delay” the repack, as efforts to link the two processes would “conflict” with statute, he said. National Association of Tower Erectors Chairman Jim Tracy will emphasize the group's focus on ensuring safe deployment of antennas and wireless equipment as part of the repack. He will say “the marketplace will ultimately dictate the time period it will take to achieve this transition," that “we want work to be done properly and efficiently, and that at the end of the day, we want our workers to come home safe.” America's Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler, NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan, Competitive Carriers Association General Counsel Rebecca Murphy Thompson and NewsChannel 5 Network General Manager Lyn Plantinga also will testify. House Commerce Republicans have said they want to discuss estimated repacking costs and potential delays in the post-incentive auction's repack timeline. They also want to examine how low-power and TV translator stations are faring in the repacking process (see 1709050041). The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. in 2123 Rayburn.
The “pace of work” is accelerating on the CTA-CEB32 “family” of recommended ATSC 3.0 practices now that more of the next-generation broadcast system “becomes finalized,” wrote Brian Markwalter, CTA senior vice president-technology and research, in the September issue of ATSC’s monthly newsletter, The Standard. Once work on CTA-CEB32 is complete, it will consist of 11 parts plus an overview that will be “easily mapped to ATSC 3.0 standards,” said Markwalter, an ATSC board member. CTA-CEB32's components “will help close the loop between the broadcast side and receivers through industry agreed-upon guidance so that interoperability can be achieved in a mixed environment of independent broadcasters and TV manufacturers,” he said. CTA-CEB32.5 on ATSC 3.0 audio was the first component to be finalized, and recommended practices for the system’s logical layer (CEB32.3) and video (CEB32.4) are “approaching the ballot stage,” while that for the physical layer (CEB32.2) is being drafted, he said. Work begins next on system integration (CEB32.1), he said.
The FCC needs to study whether the improvements brought by ATSC 3.0 are worth rendering many existing TVs obsolete and disproportionately affecting low-income and minority households, blogged Rosa Mendoza, executive director of the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership on Thursday. “Without sufficient answers, low-income and minority families could be adversely affected and we could see the digital divide widen.” The FCC should require that broadcasters simulcast in both 1.0 and 3.0 during the transition, and give consumers enough time to switch to the new technology, HTTP said.
If the FCC implements Blue Alerts into the wireless emergency alert system, it should do so in a way that minimizes technical changes and system modifications, said T-Mobile and CTIA in reply comments in docket 15-94. The FCC should integrate the BLU code into the existing “imminent threat” alert class to avoid having to create a new standard, CTIA said. Giving the alerts a new message classification would be “a lengthy process,” T-Mobile said. The FCC shouldn’t look at ATSC 3.0 as a solution for mobile alerts, T-Mobile said: “There are significant technical challenges to integrating ATSC 3.0 technology into mobile devices, and the benefits represented are either overstated, are already provided through WEA, or are not readily achievable.”
A combined Sinclair/Tribune will use its increased leverage over the repacking to force wireless carriers to incorporate ATSC 3.0 technology into handsets, said T-Mobile and the Competitive Carriers Association in replies posted in FCC docket 17-179 Wednesday. “If Sinclair is allowed to proceed with its acquisition of Tribune, Sinclair’s attempt to force inefficient, costly behavior from wireless carriers and their customers is likely to succeed,” CCA said.
Sinclair’s One Media met with FCC commissioners or their aides twice in the past week to press its argument for incorporating only the ATSC’s A/321 document on “System Discovery and Signaling,” not the A/322 standard on “Physical Layer Protocol,” into ATSC 3.0 rules, filings in docket 16-142 show. The FCC “should avoid over-regulation to permit innovation,” One Media told Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and aide Erin McGrath in Thursday meetings, said the company's latest ex parte notice, posted Friday. The commission need not mandate A/322 “to ensure universal compatibility,” it said. “Equipment manufacturers build to industry standards -- and service providers use those standards -- in the ordinary course without any government mandates,” it said. “Mandating A/322 would hamper innovation without any corresponding benefit.” One Media has support from NAB, PBS and Pearl TV in urging exclusion of A/322, while LG Electronics has been the strongest advocate for including it as a critical measure to help prevent receiver compatibility problems (see 1707120044). CTA recently urged the FCC to write final rules to “encourage” adoption of A/322, but in keeping with the voluntary, market-driven nature of the 3.0 transition, it stopped well short of seeking an A/322 requirement (see 1706090026).
New FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr and returning Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel have had little to say publicly in Washington since being sworn in earlier this month (see 1708110053). But they have started to weigh in on their areas of focus through social media. Carr is casting himself as the jobs commissioner, a theme in tweets from his visit to North Carolina and a statement Thursday. Rosenworcel is indicating that public safety will once again be one of her big focuses, as it was before she had to leave earlier this year. Commissioners often can have an influence in issues they choose to champion even as the chairman sets the agenda, ex-officials noted.