The FCC will “breathe life” into Section 7 of the Communications Act and will determine within a year whether any proposal for a new technology or service is in the public interest, Chairman Ajit Pai said Wednesday in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, webcast from Pittsburgh. The agency posted Pai’s remarks. Pai said he's directing staff to follow Section 7 and is charging the Office of Engineering and Technology with making sure the FCC adheres to the law.
Notice of the FCC NPRM on ATSC 3.0 was published in Friday's Federal Register. Comments on the TV standard (see 1702230060) in docket 16-142 are due May 9, replies June 8, said an FCC public notice and the FR notice. The May 9 deadline falls a week before ATSC members convene for their annual broadcast TV conference.
The AWARN Alliance and One Media demonstrated how ATSC 3.0 will enhance emergency alerting, for FCC Media Bureau acting Chief Michelle Carey and staff, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 16-142 Tuesday. Officials from NAB, Monroe Electronics and Sinclair attended, the filing said. “These demonstrations showed how the Next Gen standard moves far beyond simple text messages on receive devices to display photos of missing children, kidnapping suspects, vehicle identity and location maps.” The “limited technical proceeding” on ATSC 3.0 “should not be the vehicle to expand programming obligations or other rules not directly tied to the optional, voluntary use of the new standard,” said the alliance, which along with CTA, NAB and others petitioned the FCC to OK 3.0. In its own ex parte filing on the Monday meeting, One Media said the simulcasting proposed in the ATSC 3.0 NPRM is "adaptable on a market-specific basis without government involvement and protects both viewers and MVPDs by continuing to offer the existing programming without change."
Though ATSC 3.0 for now is earmarked for deployment only in South Korea first and the U.S. next, its suite of standards “anticipates application in different regions of the world, and is therefore designed to intrinsically accommodate regional variations,” says ATSC 3.0’s A/300 document, just approved as a candidate standard and posted to the ATSC website. ATSC President Mark Richer at last year’s NAB Show previewed the A/300 “master document” as the “mother of all standards” because it “points to all the other documents” in the ATSC 3.0 suite (see 1604180080).
An order that would increase flexibility of channel sharing rules for broadcasters was circulated Thursday and will be on the agenda for the FCC’s March 23 commissioners' meeting, said a blog post by Chairman Ajit Pai. Under his transparency pilot program, the full text and an accompanying fact sheet were released. “The draft item would give low power TV and TV translator stations more options to stay in business and continue broadcasting essential news and information to the public,” Pai blogged.
Senate Communications Subcommittee leaders left Thursday’s hearing on spectrum value with intentions to focus on the FCC and what can happen on the regulatory front, they told us. Policymakers need to keep their eye on the ball about freeing additional spectrum, with priority on licensed and unlicensed use, witnesses told senators, part of what was initially believed to be a Spectrum 101-style introduction for newer Commerce Committee members. Several showed up to ask about spectrum, the digital divide and their interests.
The range of auction results announced by stations exemplifies the intent of Congress and the FCC that each licensee in the incentive auction has a range of choices for what to do with its spectrum, Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein said at America's Public Television Stations conference Tuesday. Though he said the FCC couldn't release details about how specific stations did, such information will become available when the commission issues its channel reassignment public notice in April. At that time, the FCC will "open the tent" to allow industry to see how the auction "played out," Epstein said. In a videotaped message played before the panel, Chairman Ajit Pai said he hoped the funds raised from the auction by public TV stations allow them to "enhance the services they provide."
The ATSC 3.0 NPRM released Friday (see 1702240069) keeps intact the FCC’s call for comments on whether it should consider a tuner mandate or require HDMI ports on future TVs to upgrade ATSC 1.0 TVs for 3.0 reception. The commission had written both those solicitations into the draft NPRM it released Feb. 2 (see 1702020059).
America's Public Television Stations President Patrick Butler conceded Washington is "rife with rumor" that President Donald Trump will recommend a budget that doesn't include funding for the CPB (see 1702230060), and noncommercial educational stations shouldn't "fear the battle that will come." Along with public TV's extensive support in Congress, 70 percent of Trump voters support funding CPB and would tell the president to "leave public television alone," Butler said at an APTS conference.
The FCC released the final ATSC 3.0 NPRM, which was approved Thursday by a unanimous vote. The item seeks comment on a proposed voluntary transition plan for broadcasters to move to transmitting in the new standard (see 1702230060).