WASHINGTON—As the three-year channel repack comes to an end next month, viewers of over-the-air television in certain markets will (once again) have to rescan their TVs to locate the new positions of local ATSC 1.0 channels. This is how it has been through Phases 1-9 and will be so in the final Phase 10.

Does it have to be that way in the new era of ATSC 3.0? ATSC doesn’t think so. In a blog on nabpilot.org, ATSC Chair and NAB Senior Vice President of Technology Lynn Claudy says that, with the deployment of ATSC 3.0 coinciding with the end of the channel repack, updating the 3.0 standard to allow for automated rescan updates could bring an end to this manual and tedious process. 

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Currently, when broadcasters are moving to a new channel due to the repack, they are required to provide public notifications via broadcasts (channel crawls) and PSAs of such changes—and there are similar rules for stations providing such notifications to over-the-air viewers when they begin deploying ATSC 3.0. Such notices need to alert viewers of channel changes that—unlike the repack—don’t have deadlines set in stone.  

“We are now about to enter an era where there are no set dates for initially moving to NextGen TV and markets may add additional NextGen TV channels and further move ATSC 1.0 stations around on an unknown and continuing basis until some indeterminate time in the relatively far future when all broadcasting has finally transitioned entirely to NextGen TV,” Claudy said. “Every time there is a change in their market, consumers will need to remember to manually rescan their TV set, a process that can take up to several minutes, in a culture where we impatiently tap our foot in front of the microwave oven.”

There is a recommended practice for manufacturers of consumer electronics to provide software in today’s smart TV’s that periodically scans for new channels, however this process has not been widely adopted, according to Claudy.

An alternative would be to use a new part to the ATSC 3.0 standard, “ATSC Candidate Standard on Regional Service Availability," which was originally adopted as a Candidate Standard in 2018, and is currently being voted on by the ATSC membership to be elevated to a full Standard (A/200).

The candidate standard: “specifies information describing the availability of broadcast services over time within a broadcast region. Broadcast receivers may use this information to help construct a list of services that may be available to them. Additionally, the information provides a schedule that allows receivers to maintain an up-to-date service list. This document describes how the information may be distributed using either an ATSC 1.0 broadcast (or any MPEG-2 transport stream), ATSC 3.0 broadcast or over broadband.”

Most importantly, the standard would use an XML specification of a “Regional Service Availability Table” (RSAT) that would provide information specific to localities, including schedules and channel information for new ATSC 3.0 services being launched. 

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“Once this information is available to a receiver that has been designed to receive RSATs and reconfigure its channel information appropriately, the need for manual rescanning by consumers would be largely or completely obviated,” Claudy said.

Using channel crawls or PSA’s to notify viewers of channel changes is so 20th century. This new candidate standard would help remove one more chore that viewers would need to remember, Claudy said. 

“Smarter infrastructure that extends the intelligence of TVs to keeping track of basic program information on their own would go a long way in again making television technology ‘fit in so that you don’t really even notice it,’” he said. 

NEW YORK—With the channel repack entering its final year, Durst Broadcasting—which manages the broadcast antenna facility atop One World Trade Center—announced this week that it had successfully completed phase four of the repack. The organization urged New York City residents to rescan their TV sets in order to receive the channels in their new spots on the spectrum band.

The channel repack is a result of the 2017 FCC spectrum auctions, which requires nearly 1,000 U.S. television broadcasters to move to new channels to make way for new wireless companies to occupy former broadcast spectrum. For New York, where most of the TV stations host their antennas on top of One World Trade Center, Durst has been planning and coordinating the transfer for years, according to John Lyons, assistant vice president and director of broadcast communications for The Durst Organization.

“We have been working with the broadcasters and equipment suppliers for well over a year to make this transition a smooth one,” Lyons said. “Thanks to the efforts of the New York City broadcast community, equipment supplier RFS Myat and systems integrator DSI RF Systems Inc., we were ready for this operation on Aug. 1 as scheduled. Within a few minutes, the stations were on their new channels.”

The stations involved include:

WCBS

WLIW

WNBC

WNJU

WNYW

WWOR

WRNN

WPXN

Planning for the repack began before the World Trade Center Broadcast site became operational in mid-2017 and involved the installation of a redundant combiner and antenna systems that allowed all the stations to continue operations while Durst updated existing hardware.

Consumers who watch television over the air will need to rescan their TV sets in order to receive the new channels. Subscribers to satellite or cable TV do not need to rescan. Viewers should also rotate their antennas toward One World Trade Center for the best reception.

For more news and insight on the repack, visit TV Technology'srepack silo.

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission today announced the launch of a special call center dedicated to helping viewers of over-the-air television rescan their TVs during the ongoing transition of local TV channels to new frequencies following the Commission’s broadcast incentive auction.

Incentive Auction Task Force Chair Jean Kiddoo said, “As an over-the-air TV viewer myself, I know that consumers sometimes need extra help rescanning televisions when broadcast stations add channels or change frequencies. That’s why it’s so important to make both online information and telephone assistance like the consumer help line available to viewers during the ongoing broadcast transition.”

Viewers may reach the call center toll-free by dialing 1-888-CALLFCC (1-888-225-5322) and pressing “6” to speak to a help desk representative. The call center is staffed from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern time, seven days a week, to enable consumers throughout the country to obtain assistance during evening and weekend hours.

Many over-the-air TV channels across the United States have changed and will be changing frequencies to open up airwaves for new high-speed 5G and other wireless services. The actual channel numbers on consumers’ TVs will not change, but a change in frequency impacts how a channel is received over the air by a TV receiver. If consumers watch free over-the-air television with an antenna, they will need to rescan their TV set each time a local station moves to a new frequency to be sure that the TV recognizes the new frequency when consumers tune in to that channel. TV stations will make on-air announcements at least 30 days in advance of making the change. Viewers who subscribe to cable or satellite services do not need to take any action to continue receiving local channels.

In 2018, Congress funded FCC efforts to educate consumers about the reorganization of broadcast television spectrum, including the dedicated consumer call center, online materials, and consumer outreach to a diverse set of communities nationwide about rescanning. The Commission is coordinating closely with industry stakeholders to ensure that our consumer education efforts are complementary to, and not duplicative of, industry efforts.

For more information on the broadcast TV transition and rescanning, visit www.fcc.gov/TVrescan, which also includes a link to an interactive map that allows viewers to insert an address to see the frequency change timeframe for most local channels.

For all the latest news and insight on the repack, visit our repack silo.