New concerns emerged Friday over some details and lack of others on ATSC 3.0 in the first attempt by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to publicly release drafts of entire items before they're voted on at commissioners' meetings. CTA and the New America Foundation said they found bothersome some of the details in the draft ATSC 3.0 rulemaking, issued Thursday along with a draft order on AM revitalization. And a spectrum consultant sought more details. The regulator declined to comment.
The FCC will advance broadcasters closer to a new standard by considering a draft NPRM in docket 16-142 on ATSC 3.0 at commissioners’ Feb. 23 meeting, Chairman Ajit Pai announced Thursday. The FCC also will consider a draft order in docket 13-249 that would remove the 40-mile limit on where FM translators can be placed by AM stations. Though both items are still on circulation, Pai released the full text of the items as part of a “pilot program” intended to increase FCC transparency, he said. (see 1702020051).
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's pilot project to make draft agenda items public three weeks before commissioner meetings drew applause from key policymakers, industry parties, former commissioners and others who said it should improve agency transparency. Some cautioned the move could add to pressure on the FCC as stakeholders flood the commission with last-minute concerns and proposals. Pai and fellow Republican Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said they believed the process will sharpen public feedback and improve agency decision-making.
In an FCC pilot begun Thursday morning, the agency will release the full text of draft items before commissioners vote on them, when they're slated for consideration at members' monthly public meetings. Chairman Ajit Pai did just that, releasing a draft NPRM on broadcasters' envisioned move to next-generation ATSC 3.0 TV, plus an order on AM revitalization, of which he has been a major proponent.
Ajit Pai -- in his first public speech as FCC head -- highlighted robocalls and closing the digital divide as his top consumer issues. “The focus of this committee really is where the rubber meets the road in terms of the FCC’s mission,” he said at the opening of an Consumer Advisory Committee meeting Friday. As he did in recent meetings with commission stakeholders and to the agency's staff, he talked of his plan mentioned also in a September speech to help close the digital divide (see 1701230058). Also at the CAC meeting, NAB General Counsel Patrick McFadden repeated the promises of the next TV transition to ATSC 3.0.
The FCC Consumer Advisory Committee plans to discuss the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard, incentive auction, consumer device security and spoofing and robocalling at its Friday meeting, said an agenda released Wednesday. Chairman Ajit Pai and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau Deputy Chief Mark Stone will speak, it said. The meeting is 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. in the Commission Meeting Room.
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.