Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and FCC Republicans aren’t likely to agree all the time but she looks forward to the new “trio” making the most of its opportunities, she said in Q&A at NAB Wednesday. In the speech, Clyburn said industry and Congress should do more to promote ownership diversity, and backed the return of the minority tax credit. “The status quo is not working,” Clyburn said. “None of us is satisfied.” Though she hasn’t met with Chairman Ajit Pai to discuss the FCC's new direction, she expects such a meeting to occur soon, she said.
Elevating Ajit Pai to chairman, as expected (see 1701200051), means the FCC can proceed directly into its new agenda under President Donald Trump, without complications of an interim chairmanship and a long waiting period for a new chairman to arrive. Pai’s positions are already well known -- he has been a commissioner since May 2012, a nearly five-year track record -- so there's relatively little uncertainty on where he stands on many issues. Before he was a commissioner, Pai worked for the FCC Office of General Counsel.
The A/341 document on ATSC 3.0 video and high dynamic range will go out in a matter of days for a four-week ATSC membership ballot that, if approved, will elevate the document to the status of a proposed standard, ATSC President Mark Richer told us Thursday. But that hardly will close the door on the contentious HDR saga at ATSC 3.0. Richer said up to five technology “amendments” to A/341 will be floated to the ATSC membership in the next few weeks.
ATSC's Technology Group 3, which supervises the framing of ATSC 3.0, approved a ballot this week that would elevate the A/341 document on ATSC 3.0 video and high dynamic range to the status of a proposed standard, ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us Thursday through a spokesman. "The document includes support for HLG and PQ transfer functions,“ Richer said of the competing hybrid log-gamma and perceptual quantization approaches to HDR. It was Richer's first known public acknowledgement that ATSC 3.0 will support both HDR technologies.
The ATSC 3.0 suite of standards will have “future extensibility” to support an upgrade to 8K resolution, ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us Tuesday through a spokesman. ATSC 3.0's H.265 video codec “can be extended to support delivery of 8K video,” Richer said. ATSC 3.0 also “incorporates a number of other mechanisms for future extensibility, including the “flexible boot strap signal” in the standard’s physical layer and the internet protocol layer, he said. “These and other features of 3.0 could be used to signal the presence and parameters of the 8K transmission to new receivers.” ATSC 3.0's framers for years have positioned 8K as “within the realm” of where the standard ultimately would “evolve to” (see 1404080061). As an issue, 8K jumped in importance at CES with the multitude of 8K TV prototypes showcased on the main show floor and analyst projections that 8K product would make it to market soon (see 1701090053).
LAS VEGAS -- Fiber is critical as the IoT emerges and traditional broadband doesn’t offer a big enough pipe, said Magellan Advisors CEO John Honker at the CES broadband conference Wednesday. Honker, whose company advises cities and businesses building out fiber, spoke during a panel organized by the Fiber-to-the-Home Council.
The American TV Alliance, AT&T and Dish Network have “either misunderstood or ignored the very clear message” in the broadcast petition asking the FCC to approve the transition to ATSC 3.0, Sinclair told Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake in a meeting Friday, said an FCC ex parte filing posted Wednesday in docket 16-142. The petition didn't ask the FCC to require multichannel video programming distributors to carry any ATSC 3.0 signals, said Sinclair. Pay-TV transmission equipment and set-top boxes are incapable of carrying ATSC 3.0 signals, it said. “Broadcasters have no interest in delaying implementation of Next Generation TV until MVPDs are technically capable of carrying it,” said Sinclair. “Therefore, broadcasters are prepared to deliver their program streams to MVPDs in the current standard (ATSC 1.0), so as to maintain the operational status quo.” Because FCC approval wouldn't change what MVPDs are carrying, “there should be no change to the underlying carriage arrangement, be it must carry or retransmission consent,” the company said. It isn't in broadcasters' interest to demand carriage of programming streams that MVPDs can't carry, the broadcaster said. “In light of this, we can only conclude that ATVA, AT&T and DISH persist in their ruse to delay implementation of Next Generation TV because they see it as a competitive threat to their service offerings.” The FCC should not “broaden this very narrow, technical rulemaking into a comprehensive inquiry on competitive industry business relationships,” Sinclair said. “Rather, the FCC should limit the NPRM to questions about Next Generation TV technology and its broadcast implementation plan.” ATVA and AT&T didn't comment Wednesday. AT&T and Dish "appear to be seeking to further their own interests by asking the Commission to dictate terms and conditions of future retransmission consent agreements" in the guise of airing their concerns about ATSC 3.0, NAB said in a separate letter. "AT&T is a company with a market capitalization of more than $250 billion. The notion that any local broadcaster could force AT&T to do anything is comical." The pay-TV concern over ATSC 3.0 is "nothing more than an effort to accomplish in this proceeding what they could not accomplish in the Commission’s good faith negotiation proceeding earlier this year," NAB said. "They are asking the Commission to intervene in retransmission consent negotiations for their narrow, self-interested benefit."
NAB for the first time in recent memory published advice on how members can best navigate CES. The Las Vegas show "has a well-deserved reputation as the place to see new technology and engage with those creating that technology,” said a Tuesday blog post from NAB Pilot, the former NAB Labs. Broadcasters’ content is “reaching our audience on an increasing number and variety of devices,” it said. “It is ever more important to witness for ourselves the changes occurring in the consumer technology marketplace.” For “newcomers” to the show, “CES can be completely overwhelming, but advance planning can moderate the madness,” it said. “The best bet is to do some research in advance of the show.” The blog advised against “just diving in and wandering” the show floor, “unless you have vast amounts of time to match the vast amount of floor space covered by the exhibits, as well as the stamina and shoes appropriate for walking on concrete for long distances.” CTA is “excited to welcome NAB executives and their members to CES and appreciate that they have long attended and participated in our show, as we have in the NAB show,” Karen Chupka, senior vice president-CES and corporate business strategy, emailed us Wednesday. “Broadcast and consumer technology executives hold numerous meetings at both shows, and no doubt ATSC 3.0 will be one of the hot topics.” CTA and NAB “have partnered in many areas, celebrating the symbiotic relationship between televised content and receiving devices, jointly promoting digital television, HD radio and more, as well as collaborating to develop key industry standards,” she said. “A number of former CTA employees are now at NAB, and we employ former NAB staff. We’ve enjoyed a close relationship with NAB for a long time, and certainly look forward to continuing this successful partnership.”
BMC Software hires Peter Leav, ex-Polycom, which was bought by Siris Capital (see 1609270041), as president-CEO, succeeding Bob Beauchamp, who remains chairman ... Sinclair promotes John Solomon to chief operating officer-Circa, its newer brand that's mobile-friendly and has video news and entertainment ... Marvell Technology hires Thomas Lagatta, ex-Numecent and onetime Broadcom, as executive vice president-worldwide sales and marketing ... Cubic hires as vice presidents at Cubic Mission Solutions: Jerry Madigan, ex-Aerojet Rocketdyn, for secure communications, and Robert Peabody, ex-Northrop Grumman, systems strategy. ... Petra Industries elevates Jim Loden to vice president of e-commerce sales ... Quantcast sales hires include Brian Murphy, ex-Unified, as vice president-sales/head-East and Central regions ... Newly named to ATSC board for 2017: Paul Hearty, Sony Electronics; Jong Kim, LG Electronics; Peter Sockett, Capitol Broadcasting; Yiyan Wu, Communications Research Centre.
The American Television Alliance isn’t trying to stop ATSC 3.0, the pay-TV group said in a blog post Monday responding to recent criticisms from NAB (see 1612090031). “We have to take the Ronald Reagan approach in this case: ‘Trust but verify.’” ATVA “is working with the FCC to weigh all of the significant factors, because that’s exactly what Americans deserve,” ATVA said. The new standard could lead to fees for consumers for buying new equipment, and “ATSC 3.0 carriage could be leveraged by broadcasters to extract yet even more retrans fees that could be passed on to consumers,” the post said. “Those concerns and the others impacting access and consumer cost burdens should all give us pause,” ATVA said. “We welcome a conversation with the NAB and federal regulators to address the concerns for consumers.”