Broadcasters are paying a huge price for supposed demand for low-band spectrum that never materialized in the TV incentive auction, said Preston Padden, who advised broadcasters in the auction, at a Duke Law School conference Friday. Padden said the auction was inefficient on several levels, with 42 MHz of “pristine” 600 MHz going unsold.
Sinclair’s One Media appeared in comments in the FCC ATSC 3.0 rulemaking to dip a toe in the water of backing tuner mandates, though it stopped well short of asking the commission to impose them. “The capabilities enabled by ATSC 3.0 are such that the marketplace will demand inclusion of those capabilities in receive devices,” One Media commented Tuesday in docket 16-142. “Commission support for inclusion of ATSC 3.0 tuners in the devices consumers use to watch television today would greatly facilitate and expedite the introduction and use of innovative new services.” Though migration to ATSC 3.0 “is a voluntary, optional deployment and it may be premature for the Commission to consider changes to the television tuner mandate adopted pursuant to the All Channel Receiver Act, to the extent that there is a marketplace failure or critical need to facilitate emergency warnings/information, the Commission can revisit the need to require 3.0 reception capacity in all receive devices,” said a footnote. Then-CEO David Smith pooh-poohed the tuner mandate when asked about it at November’s NAB Show New York (see 1611100032). “We live in a market-driven world,” said Smith, now executive chairman. “We’re sophisticated enough as marketers and delivery guys to figure out how to get the consumer to want our product,” without the need for a government-mandated ATSC 3.0 tuner requirement, he said then. Sinclair hasn't asked "in the course of this part of the proceeding for a tuner mandate," Mark Aitken, vice president-advanced technology, told us Thursday. "The light touch of government is the course that's being asked for," Aitken said. "This is a voluntary migration, a voluntary implementation, and so we see no reason for a mandate. But look, there are a lot of areas that are not addressed or are lightly addressed because one does not know how the market is going to proceed." The issue of tuner mandates "is only obliquely touched upon" in the comments "because of the nature of what's being asked for on the whole," said Aitken. ATSC 3.0 petitioners CTA, NAB, America’s Public TV Stations and the AWARN Alliance used their joint comments in the FCC rulemaking to argue against tuner mandates as "counterproductive and unnecessary.” (see 1705090056)
The solution to fake news is for mainstream media outlets to do a better job convincing the public of their utility and the thoroughness of their content, said Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a speech on media content regulation at a Media Institute luncheon Thursday. Steps like hiring fact checkers and use of algorithms intended to give lower priority to fake online news run the risk of limiting discourse or catching up legitimate news coverage in the net, he said. Some media outlets and social networking organizations announced plans in recent months to tackle fake news (see 1701040025).
Ongoing Electronic Comment Filing System woes at the FCC bothered all industry lawyers we queried, with many filings still unavailable and at times ECFS not working, as it has at times throughout the week (see 1705080042 and 1705100062).
TV broadcasters want the FCC to handle ATSC 3.0 with a “light regulatory touch.” MVPDs, wireless entities, consumer groups and NPR urged the agency to protect retransmission negotiations, unlicensed spectrum, radio and the post-incentive auction repacking from the transition to the new television standard, in comments filed Tuesday in docket 16-142 (see 1705090053). The FCC should “expeditiously adopt only those minimal regulations necessary to permit broadcasters to voluntarily implement ATSC 3.0 transmissions,” said Nexstar. The transition to the new standard “threatens to compound disruption in the industry and to the public,” said NCTA.
The FCC should adopt only rule changes that are “necessary to permit broadcasters to move forward with deployment” in its proceeding on ATSC 3.0, said NAB, CTA, America's Public TV Stations and the AWARN Alliance in joint comments in docket 16-142 Tuesday. “Rather than imposing mandates, the Commission should allow the consumer electronics industry to respond to market conditions and introduce Next Gen-compatible equipment as consumers demand it,” said the entities that introduced the original ATSC 3.0 petition. “The Commission should allow the market, not regulatory dictates, to determine whether or not Next Gen is successful.” Broadcasters shouldn't "obtain MVPD carriage of ATSC 3.0 signals (in which viewers may have little interest) by threatening existing television service (in which viewers have a great deal of interest),” commented the American Television Alliance. ATVA warned the broadcast transition shouldn’t be a burden to others, an issue the American Cable Association focused on. Since smaller cable companies face more capacity constraints and are less able to absorb unexpected costs, the broadcast transition “presents particular challenges and requires particularized solutions,” ACA said. Comments from private citizens dominated much of the docket earlier Tuesday, before trade groups and companies were expected to have weighed in later on deadline day. "There should be minimum tuner standards” mandated as part of the migration to next-gen broadcasting, commented Ronald Brey, of Rockford, Illinois. Minimum ATSC 3.0 tuner standards would “prevent overload by non-TV services and linearity requirements to reduce intermodulation distortion,” said the frequent commenter in past FCC radio and TV proceedings. “The tighter geographic packing of TV stations should require a specified minimum of adjacent channel rejection.”
Sinclair and Tribune overlap in 14 markets, but Sinclair is confident its planned $6.6 billion deal -- $3.9 billion purchase plus assumption of $2.7 billion in debt -- won't require any station sales since the overlaps have no impact on competition, Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley said. Station swaps, on the other hand, "are high on the list of priorities," he said in an analyst call after Sinclair/Tribune was announced Monday. "Swaps are definitely on the table."
Sinclair sees the recent FCC vote to restore the UHF discount (see 1704200048) as “a reasonable first step in bringing antiquated broadcast rules in line with the realities of today’s diverse media landscape,” CEO Chris Ripley said on a Wednesday earnings call. “Further modernization of the broadcast regulations will benefit consumers through economies of scale that allow broadcasters to invest more in local news and quality local programming," he said.
LAS VEGAS -- It’s conceivable that a TV maker would be able to use software updates, under the right conditions, to render a set ATSC 3.0-ready when it doesn’t have that capability out of the box, Brian Markwalter, CTA senior vice president-research and standards, told us Tuesday at the NAB Show.
LAS VEGAS -- The FCC will vote on a proposed “comprehensive review” of its media regulations at its May 18 meeting, Chairman Ajit Pai said during his keynote Tuesday at the NAB Show. The review will include looks at rules for broadcast, cable and satellite and will be distinct from the FCC's quadrennial review of its ownership rules, Pai told reporters after his speech. Though Pai declined to provide details about the proposal, numerous broadcast attorneys told us they expect the review to focus on “regulatory underbrush,” smaller, outdated rules. “Our goal is simple: to have rules that reflect the world of 2017, not 2007, 1997, 1987, or 1977,” Pai told broadcasters.