FCC inaction on an NAB petition for clarification of ATSC 3.0 rules is making the transition to the new standard more difficult, broadcasters said. The petition was filed in November and has been a focus of NAB lobbying in recent months and was again Friday (see 2011100067).
ATSC paused its initiative with Indian authorities to help boost deployment there of ATSC 3.0 broadcast services to mobile devices (see 2103290016) at the outbreak of that country’s COVID-19 crisis, President Madeleine Noland told us. “When it’s safe to do so, we’ll pick up where we left off,” she said. The situation on the ground in India is “heartbreaking,” said Noland Monday. “All we can do is patiently stand aside, recognizing that other things are much, much, much more important in that country right now than this project. We’re looking forward to the day when things are better and different.” The project’s “apparatus” is firmly “in place, ready to be fired up again when it becomes feasible and appropriate” to do so, she said. ATSC’s NAB Show 2021 “main” messaging in October (see report, May 25 issue) will be that NextGenTV “has reached critical mass in terms of commercial deployment,” said Noland. “This thing is for real.” She sees 3.0 “as a platform,” and “it’s going to evolve as the marketplace evolves.” Standards organizations like ATSC need to “stay ahead of the curve, and that’s what we’re doing,” she said.
Emergency alerting officials and broadcasters see more information-rich alerts and increased geotargeting as the biggest needs for improving alerting, looking to ATSC 3.0 as a solution, said speakers at the Advance Warning and Response Network’s virtual summit Tuesday. More authorities are including links and additional information in their alerts, and that’s information that can’t be “effectively delivered” using the current emergency alert system, said Wade Witmer, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Association's Integrated Public Alert Warning System. Last year, there was an almost 200% increase in use of wireless emergency alerts compared with 2019, and a 135% increase in EAS use, Witmer said.
The FCC order relaxing interference rules for distributed transmission systems was a “misstep” and “includes significant factual errors, and contradictions,” said Microsoft in a petition for reconsideration of the ATSC 3.0-friendly change posted in docket 20-74 Monday. Adopt an expedited waiver process for broadcaster use of DTS that creates signal spillover exceeding "a minimal amount," Microsoft asked. The expedited waiver proposal was endorsed by then-Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and fellow Democrat Geoffrey Starks when the DTS order was approved 3-2 in January 2021 (see 2101190078), in one of the final acts under Ajit Pai. That FCC “impermissibly overlooked the substantial impacts to TVWS [TV white spaces] from the significantly increased range of DTS signals even without interference protection,” said Microsoft: Allowing “significantly more spillover by DTS transmitters outside of a broadcaster’s service area would greatly increase interference to TVWS operations."
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser's (D) May 17 order lifting COVID-19 capacity restrictions on large business gatherings by June 11 made ATSC President Madeleine Noland “definitely more optimistic” her group's annual NextGen Broadcast Conference can be in-person Aug. 25-26 at the Reagan Building, Noland told us Monday. ATSC plans a hybrid event, she said. Noland characterizes her outlook as “cautiously optimistic,” saying, “Look at the IFA conference being canceled. I realize that’s another part of the world, but still.” Opening of registrations for NAB Show 2021 (see 2105190028) was “another positive sign,” she said. Some ATSC members see “the light at the end of the tunnel” for COVID-19, while others are “pretty worried” and some “are kind of halfway in between,” said Noland, saying she's in the last category.
The FCC proceeding on its Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act isn’t considered likely to lead to rule changes, but increased enforcement and warnings to licensees could be in the cards, said broadcast and cable attorneys. The FCC acted quickly to begin an examination after the act’s originator, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., criticized lack of enforcement. The agency has authority to enforce the rule, Rosenworcel told reporters Thursday. Comments on the rules are due June 3 (see 2105070058).
Switching Sinclair’s KBOI-TV Boise to Channel 20 (see 2104270084) would let it take advantage of better propagation of UHF signals and “prospective advantages of UHF broadcasting using the ATSC 3.0 standard,” said Sinclair comments posted Wednesday in FCC docket 21-156.
Channel 6 low-power TV broadcasters face “financial and logistical pressure” from the coming July 13 deadline for LPTV stations to go digital and FCC silence on an LP-6 proposal based on ATSC 3.0, said LP-6 broadcaster George Flinn in a filing posted Thursday to docket 03-185. The deadline appears to require the channel 6 stations cease analog audio broadcasts -- receivable on FM radios -- that are their primary content, and stations propose offering the radio signal as an ancillary service and broadcasting video over ATSC 3.0 (see 2104300063). It isn’t clear if that idea will be acceptable to the Media Bureau. “Time is truly of the essence since FCC guidance is critical to the build-out path that must be taken (and the financial outlay which must be incurred),” Flinn said: The matter should get "expedited consideration.”
Broadcast advertising improved and station owners see opportunities in sports betting and ATSC 3.0 but little chance of relaxed ownership rules anytime soon, they said in Q1 calls last week. “What a difference 10 weeks makes,” said Cumulus CEO Mary Berner of the COVID-19 recovery. “We are optimistic for gradual, but continued progress throughout the balance of the year as macroeconomic conditions progress, said Entravision CEO Walter Ulloa.
Gray Television agreed to buy Meredith’s 17 TV stations for $2.7 billion, they announced (see here and here) Monday. This includes one overlapping market where Gray plans to divest a station, it won’t put Gray over national ownership limits, and it isn’t expected to hit regulatory snags, broadcast attorneys and analysts said in interviews. Expected to be completed in Q4, the deal would make Gray No. 2 broadcaster by revenue. It would give Gray access to larger markets and leaves room for more acquisitions, making the company a “super-broadcaster,” said Noble Capital Markets' Michael Kupinski.