Pearl TV supports the FCC’s initial proposal to incorporate only the A/321 “bootstrap” physical-layer document into the final rules on ATSC 3.0, it told representatives of the commission's Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology in meetings Tuesday. ATSC 3.0 “was designed to be flexible and to adjust to changing technology,” Pearl said in an ex parte notice posted Thursday in docket 16-142. With only A/321 in the rules, the FCC “will ensure that ATSC can develop different features and capabilities for Next Generation TV depending on how the standard is received and develops,” it said. “This ongoing flexibility is a virtue of the standard and should be maintained. The arguments made by the few parties who support incorporating A/322 are not persuasive, in particular because some parties may stand to benefit from their intellectual property interests in A/322.” It didn’t mention names, but LG Electronics has been a particularly outspoken proponent of putting A/322, the document on physical-layer protocol, in the final rules, saying failure to do so risks “disenfranchising” the public in the form of faulty receivers that don't properly demodulate the ATSC 3.0 signal (see 1706080054). LG and Zenith R&D Lab representatives met with the commission Thursday to emphasize "the importance of incorporating A/322" into the ATSC 3.0 rules, LG said in an ex parte notice posted Friday. LG and Zenith have made no secret of their stake in ATSC 3.0's physical layer. At Cleveland field trials two years ago, they said that of the 16 “blocks” that will comprise ATSC 3.0's physical layer, LG has at least some involvement in at least 10 of those blocks (see 1507130007). Pearl worries “low-end manufacturers, motivated by avoiding IP expenses, will simply bypass A/321 and only build their devices to the specifications of A/322,” it said. “As technology evolves and improves, these devices would be left orphaned without the core A/321 capability to be updated to more advanced standards.” Sinclair's One Media also has come out against putting A/322 into the final ATSC 3.0 rules (see 1706080054). Pearl and Sinclair partnered with LG rival Samsung in an ATSC 3.0 memorandum of understanding two years ago (see 1506170046). Samsung publicly has been silent on the A/322 issue.
Sinclair's proposed buy of Tribune broadcast outlets would boost its operational efficiencies and let Sinclair upgrade the stations’ facilities and expand the stations’ local coverage, thus offering more value to MVPDs, and increase syndicated and original programming offerings, they said in public interest statement filed at the FCC Friday. They also said the deal will let Sinclair "be better able to develop greater strategic complements to its current broadcast operations," such as more digital content offerings and a faster rollout of an ATSC 3.0 network. The filing listed investments Sinclair has made in stations it bought in recent years from Fisher Broadcasting and Allbritton. The companies said they both own full-power TV stations in 12 designated market areas, and that in 10 of them FCC rules preclude Sinclair buying the Tribune licenses. Those 10 are Seattle-Tacoma, Washington; St. Louis; Portland, Oregon; Salt Lake City; Oklahoma City; Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo-Battle Creek, Michigan; Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York, Pennsylvania; Richmond-Petersburg, Virginia; and Des Moines-Ames, Iowa. They also said Tribune has a legal duopoly in Indianapolis but FCC rules preclude Sinclair buying the Tribune licenses there. They said Tribune owns multiple licenses in Washington, D.C., Milwaukee, New Orleans and Denver, but FCC rules would allow Sinclair purchase of the licenses there. They also said, without divestitures, Sinclair would have an audience reach exceeding the 39 percent cap under the national TV television ownership rule, but they "intend to take such actions as necessary to comply." Sinclair said it favored station swaps over station sales in the $6.6 billion deal (see 1705080018).
The FCC’s newly rechartered Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council, CSRIC VI, met for the first time under Chairman Ajit Pai, who stopped by to open the meeting. CSRIC V wrapped up work in March with little fanfare and no top FCC officials speaking (see 1703150058). Cybersecurity, a key focus under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, was largely off the agenda at Friday's meeting, though one working group focused on “Network Reliability and Security Risk Reduction.” CSRIC VI is more focused on areas from 5G to the emerging IoT.
The broadcaster spectrum consortium based on ATSC 3.0 started by Sinclair and Nexstar is accepting new member groups as both “affiliates” and “founders” and is in negotiations with “a ton” of prospective member groups, said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley at a Media Institute event Tuesday.
The broadcaster spectrum consortium working on ATSC 3.0, virtual MVPD, automotive and wireless applications and other issues added its first affiliate member: Northwest Broadcasting. Nexstar, Sinclair and most recently Univision (see 1706010079) are part of the group promoting spectrum aggregation for TV stations to compete in wireless data transmission; the consortium now reaches about 90 percent of the U.S. "We invite other broadcasters to join us as we continue to advance the Next Generation Broadcast Standard," said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley Wednesday. Northwest CEO Brian Brady said the consortium gives "broadcasters the ability to control their future rather than having it dictated by others."
Sinclair’s proposed buy of Tribune Media would put too many U.S. homes within reach of not enough voices, media consolidation opponents, union officials, academics and MVPD officials told us. After the $3.9 billion deal, the resulting company would reach 69.4 percent of U.S. homes. “I’m not sure it’s a great thing for the American consumer,” said DePauw University media professor Jeffrey McCall. Though some broadcast-side proponents of the deal said it’s necessary for Sinclair to grow to compete in the modern media market, analysts and broadcast officials said the transaction is intended to increase Sinclair’s reach and enhance the viability of the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.
The current retransmission consent regime gives broadcasters too much power over MVPDs for the FCC to take a hands-off stance in approving ATSC 3.0, Mediacom’s Joseph Young said in a long filing in docket 16-422, with extensive footnotes and references to the novel Catch 22. Broadcasters will exploit their position and “use retransmission consent as a club” to compel MVPDs and consumers to transition to ATSC 3.0 without FCC safeguards, Mediacom said. “It would be a mistake to give broadcasters conditionless permission to innovate around the ATSC standard unless subscribers were also given permission to pay only for the stations they want to buy,” the filing said. “Permission to implement ATSC 3.0 should be granted, but subject to carefully thought-out safeguards against the potential negative consequences for millions of Americans who have no practical choice but to buy whatever broadcasters put on the menu.”
The FCC ATSC 3.0 rulemaking saw more replies underscoring the sometimes contentious nature of what broadcasters hope is a switch to the next-generation standard. Earlier replies in docket 16-142 (see 1706080067) and initial comments (see 1705100072) also showed some differences among broadcasters, MVPDs and consumer electronics interests. Whether to mandate 3.0 tuners is one such issue, with CTA replying to stress the importance of not imposing tuner mandates. It was the first time in the 14-month-long proceeding that CTA commented on its own rather than jointly with NAB and the other groups that petitioned to authorize 3.0 as a voluntary, market-driven service (see 1604130065).
LG Electronics used its reply comments Thursday in FCC ATSC 3.0 rulemaking docket 16-142 to press its case again that the commission needs to incorporate into rules the A/322 and A/321 physical-layer documents within ATSC 3.0 standards (see 1706070058). But Sinclair's One Media subsidiary said A/321 is ATSC 3.0's only needed physical-layer ingredient because A/322's functions already are written into FCC rules. Meanwhile, MVPDs and broadcasters argued over whether the switchover will amount to a mandate.
LG Electronics was right to urge the FCC to incorporate into its rules both the A/322 and A/321 physical-layer documents within the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards (see 1705100003), Hatfield & Dawson Consulting Engineers told the commission in comments posted Wednesday in the next-generation broadcast standard rulemaking proceeding (docket 16-142). The engineers' "primary concern" in the ATSC 3.0 rulemaking "is with minimizing the potential for intersystem interference among users of the broadcast spectrum," they said. “While in general we support a minimum of regulation, fundamental technical standards must be a part of the regulation package,” said the engineers. “A/321, by itself, is insufficient to define the waveform and interference requirements” of ATSC 3.0, they said. “A possible solution would be to incorporate A/322 as a part of the Commission’s rules, applicable to television broadcast content, allowing flexibility for use of non-television content so long as the basic emission waveform criteria are met.” LG has called the A/322 document on physical-layer protocol "critical for ensuring that an ATSC 3.0 signal is reliably transmitted and received." A/321 on system discovery and signaling was the only ATSC 3.0 physical-layer document that ATSC had ratified when CTA, NAB and others filed their petition for rulemaking last April asking the FCC to allow broadcasters to begin using the new broadcast standard (see 1604130065). ATSC ratified A/322 in September and approved a 2017 amendment to the document just this Tuesday. Reply comments in the ATSC 3.0 rulemaking are due Thursday.