FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announces retirement of Wireless Competition Bureau's Joseph Sorresso; Commissioner Anna Gomez hires Harsha Mudaliar, ex-Senate Commerce Committee, as policy adviser … The FCC’s newly created Office of International Affairs (see 2311150062) announces leadership team, including for front office: Jared Carlson, Nese Guendelsberger and Thomas Sullivan as deputy chiefs; Michele Wu-Bailey, assistant chief-chief of staff; and Olga Madruga-Forti as special counsel; for Telecommunications and Analysis Division: Denise Coca, chief; Francis Gutierrez, deputy chief; and David Krech, assistant chief; and for Global Strategies and Negotiation Division: David Hu, acting chief; and Roxanne McElvane-Webber, deputy chief.
The FCC shouldn’t take any action on ATSC 3.0 patents and should at least wait until a proceeding involving more patent-focused federal agencies is resolved, said NAB in a call with Media Bureau staff Thursday, according to an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 16-142. The International Trade Association, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office jointly sought comments in September on U.S. engagement with patents and standards new tech. “The Agencies are seeking stakeholder input on the current state of U.S. firm participation in standard setting, and the ability of U.S. industry to readily adopt standards to grow and compete, especially as that relates to the standardization of critical and emerging technologies,” said the Federal Register. The FCC shouldn’t act before that proceeding is complete to “ensure that it does not adopt rules or policies inconsistent with those of expert agencies in the field,” NAB said. Any effort by the FCC to “back into a patent oversight role” would be “virulently hostile to innovation,” said NAB. The FCC “lacks statutory authority to regulate any aspect of the patent marketplace or patent royalties.”
The FCC has “clear authority" to act and a “necessary role” in preventing patent licensing abuses in the ATSC 3.0 market, said ACT | the App Association in a meeting with staff from the Media Bureau and Office of General Counsel Monday. The record in docket 16-142 and experiences with other technical standards show that FCC action “is necessary to avoid the exploitation of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing commitments voluntarily made by SEP [standard essential patent] holders." Without the FCC's reinforcement and assurances on how the agency views patent license requirements, “innovators seeking to enter the ATSC market will face lockout from competing, to the detriment of American consumers,” ACT said.
NEW YORK -- Regulatory opposition to media consolidation is more religion than policy, the conflict over virtual MVPDs is an existential threat for local news, and 5G broadcast is an inferior technology, said broadcast executives at the NAB Show New York Wednesday during TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future Conference. Creating artificial competition in markets that can’t sustain it results in worse newsrooms and poor job conditions for journalists, said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley. It's “challenging” to see any regulatory relief on media ownership coming from the current FCC administration, he said. “I think it's very difficult from a sustainability standpoint to have four to five or six producers of news in a single market,” said Allen Media CEO Princell Hair.
NAB, broadcasters and tech groups don’t agree whether LG’s withdrawal from the ATSC 3.0 device market (see 2310060068) is a signal the FCC should police patent licensing for 3.0 tech, according to reply comments filed in docket 16-142 by Monday’s deadline. LG’s decision “should be viewed as an unfortunate data point in a marketplace that is still in the process of developing, not as an invitation to unprecedented and overbroad Commission regulation,” said NAB. “LG will almost certainly be only the first of many manufacturers to have no choice but to forego integration or production of ATSC 3.0 technology-based products,” said electronics firm Continental Automotive Systems (CAS). Leaving the patent issue unaddressed by the FCC “is ultimately an existential threat to successful and widespread ATSC 3.0 adoption,” CAS said.
Broadcasters and ATSC 3.0 advocates say they're sticking with the standard despite a series of recent blows, including consumer electronics manufacturer LG ceasing to make 3.0 TVs, the emergence of a competing technology endorsed by international standards bodies, and a grassroots campaign urging the FCC to block broadcasters from encrypting their signals. In an email to members last week, the Advanced Television Systems Committee said the standard was facing “growing pains.” The nation’s largest broadcaster, Nexstar, emailed us Friday that it's “committed to transitioning to ATSC 3.0.” Broadcasters “are already too far down the road” to turn back now, said Joshua Weiss, CEO of broadcaster and 3.0 datacasting company Ark Multicast.
The Senate confirmed FCC Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Brendan Carr to new five-year terms Saturday, providing stability for the agency and assuring a 3-2 Democratic-controlled commission through the end of the current administration. Two big, contentious items are already in the pipeline -- a net neutrality NPRM at the commissioners' Oct. 19 open meeting and a Nov. 15 statutory deadline to issue digital discrimination rules, with a commission meeting also scheduled for that day. If the Senate hadn't acted, Starks would have had to leave in January and the FCC would have been back to a 2-2 split between Democrats and Republicans.
Low-power broadcasters WWOO-LD Boston and XGen Network demonstrated an alternative to ATSC 3.0 in a livestream Wednesday by using 5G broadcast technology to send a television signal to a cellphone, airing a news broadcast and an emergency alert. WWOO is the only station broadcasting 5G in the U.S., and does so under an FCC experimental license. Though the tech is far behind ATSC 3.0 in implementation, it has been accepted by international cellular standards-making body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and is expected to be receivable in next-generation mobile devices without additional hardware -- unlike 3.0, say 5G broadcast advocates. 3.0 “is a much more robust program right now,” but “we can get into cellphones,” said XGen CEO Frank Copsidas, who also heads the LPTV Broadcasters Association.
The Public Media Venture Group, the Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA) and WCTE Cookeville, Tennessee, launched a low-power television testbed to demonstrate what ATSC 3.0 can bring to public media, said a PMVG news release Thursday. WCTE’s Monterey, Tennessee, transmitter site will be a platform “for developing and demonstrating various ATSC 3.0 applications and use cases, such as enhanced emergency alerting, interactive education, and datacasting,” the release said. The broadcasters “anticipate the commencement of full ATSC 3.0 service to the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee and Kentucky this fall,” the release said. The testbed was constructed with assistance from Korean ATSC 3.0 technology company DigiCAP. “In early August, a delegation of Korean engineers and technology suppliers visited WCTE to set up and test the new station,” the release said. “The launch of the testbed exemplifies the power of international collaboration and demonstrates how technology leaders and innovative broadcasters can come together to drive the future of broadcasting,” said DigiCAP Senior Vice President Joonyoung Park in the release.
Nexstar is seeing increased interest from sports entities looking to air games on broadcast TV, said CEO Perry Sook Monday in the company’s Q2 earnings call. The company's CW network has inked deals with NASCAR and the collegiate Atlantic Coast Conference. Nexstar’s Q2 net revenue was $1.24 billion, was “essentially flat” compared with 2022’s Q2, said an earnings release. “On paper, both ACC and NASCAR make money for the CW over time,” said Sook on the call. “We feel good about where we will end up and now it’s all just about getting to the starting line.” Sook said the company experienced some “softness” in adverting in Q2 but chalked it up to the company’s strong presence in large markets, where local advertisers behave similarly to national advertisers that have been affected by recession concerns. Sook denounced claims that on-demand offerings have supplanted linear video. “What can't be questioned is that literally all of the video profit and 80% of video revenue of the major integrated media companies are generated by the linear model today,” Sook said. Asked about ATSC 3.0, Sook said he doesn’t expect major revenue gains from the new standard for at least five years, though he highlighted the possibility of using 3.0 to provide a backup to GPS (see 2304170012). Nexstar is “confident” the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike won’t affect its content on the CW, since most of that programming was either already developed or unscripted, Sook said.