WASHINGTON—National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt urged Congress to reform the Sports Broadcasting Act so that it “applies only to league-wide negotiations with media companies that will distribute games through broadcast television, not lock games behind streaming paywalls.”

The SBA, passed in 1961, gives the National Football League a limited antitrust exemption that allows it to negotiate TV rights deals with media companies on behalf of all of its teams.

In recent years, LeGeyt and others at a House subcommittee hearing argued, the NFL has pursued a policy of selling media rights to subscription streaming services that has enriched the league but harmed consumers.

“The Sports Broadcasting Act was built on a simple public-interest bargain,” he said in prepared testimony to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform and Antitrust. “Professional sports leagues received a limited antitrust exemption so they could pool and sell broadcast rights, and fans received broad public access to their games … For decades, that bargain worked. Fans could watch most games on free, local broadcast television. Leagues benefited from the unmatched reach of broadcasting.

“Yet today, it is increasingly apparent that the public access goals of that bargain are no longer being met,” he added. “Games from the four major professional leagues are now spread across Amazon Prime [Video], Netflix, YouTube TV and Apple TV. Fans increasingly need multiple paid subscriptions to watch their favorite teams, and survey after survey shows fans are confused and frustrated. Some estimates suggest that accessing every NFL game over the course of a season would cost a consumer well over $1,000. That’s a long way from the broad, free access Congress intended when it created the SBA.”

To remedy this, LeGeyt said: “NAB is not asking to eliminate the Sports Broadcasting Act. But this Committee should reaffirm that the SBA applies only to league-wide negotiations with media companies that will distribute games through broadcast television, not lock games behind streaming paywalls.”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez also expressed serious concern about the way the NFL has sold media rights and handled its distribution strategy.

“The economics of how fans actually watch have shifted in ways that deserve serious attention,” she said. “What used to arrive through an antenna, available to anyone regardless of income, has increasingly migrated behind a growing stack of subscriptions and league-specific apps. For a family trying to follow their team through a full season, the cost of piecing together access across multiple platforms adds up quickly.”

Gomez also noted that the FCC is currently probing the state of sports rights on broadcasting.

“The FCC has a legitimate interest in helping gather information on how the Sports Broadcasting Act is functioning in a changing media environment, and I support efforts to ensure fans can access the games they love without paying a fortune,” she said. “When sports programming migrates behind paywalls, fans lose access, local broadcasters lose the revenue that keeps their stations alive, and the local journalism those stations produce loses the funding on which they depend.”

But she added that “I also want to be candid about where the FCC's authority ends. The Commission can gather information, raise concerns, and call out fouls where it sees them, but any meaningful update to the Sports Broadcasting Act will ultimately require legislative action.”

Also testifying was Jim Hallers, founder and managing partner of Tailgators Pub & Grill and Citizens Grill, a chain of sports bars in Texas, who blasted the NFL’s 2022 decision to sell the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket out-of-market game package to YouTube. He said the general shift of sports rights to streaming has imposed significant costs on restaurants and bars.

“Because we promise customers every NFL game, we now have to figure out how to deliver multiple simultaneous streams across dozens of televisions,” he said. “One commercial video switch with enough inputs and outputs can cost in excess of $15,000. A full upgrade including equipment, wiring and the labor will cost $30,000 to $40,000 per restaurant. And then there is the bandwidth problem. It is one thing to stream a game at home. It is another thing to stream ten noon games at once while also running point-of-sale systems, credit card processing, security cameras, online ordering, music, office systems and customer Wi-Fi. When a game freezes during a key play, the customer does not blame the provider. They blame the restaurant.”

“Beginning with the 2026 season, EverPass is the commercial provider for NFL Sunday Ticket,“ he said. “But EverPass does not replace the rest of the programming my customers expect. I still need DirecTV, cable or another provider for the in-market football game, and all the other channels and programming that make a sports bar work. So instead of simplifying the business, the transition is adding another layer of cost and complexity. I cannot simply replace 40 DirecTV boxes in one venue with 40 streaming devices. It does not work like this. The internet capacity, hardware, control systems and reliability are not there yet.”

WASHINGTON—When the FCC gave the green light for ATSC 3.0 in 2017, the focus was on improving television broadcasting by combining IP with RF to bring a new range of consumer applications, better reception and enhanced picture and audio quality. While there were discussions of datacasting and enterprise solutions at the time, the idea that the standard—also branded as “NextGen TV”—had enormous potential beyond traditional television was still nascent.

Nine years later, any doubt that ATSC 3.0 could impact U.S. communications infrastructure has been erased. That reality took center stage at this week’s annual ATSC NextGen Broadcast Conference here, with three of the six sessions focused entirely on applications outside the traditional broadcast environment.

Nevertheless, the standard remains in a state of policy limbo. Broadcasters are actively petitioning the FCC to set a definitive sunset date for ATSC 1.0 so stations can drop the burden of simulcasting and unleash the full potential of ATSC 3.0.

ATSC President Madeleine Noland aptly characterized this state of transition in her opening speech.

“The current U.S. situation, as one broadcaster in this room put it, feels kind of like 'the worst of both worlds' as we straddle between a 25-year-old technology with ATSC 1.0 and the tremendous opportunities in front of us with ATSC 3.0,” she said.

Maintaining Perspective
Although NextGen TV sets have been on the consumer market since late 2020—with about 18 million units sold, according to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)—widespread consumer adoption and enthusiasm have lagged. Noland looked to history to contextualize the current conundrum.

“We have to put these things in perspective—the issues we face today are similar to the issues of yesterday,” Noland said. “But perhaps more urgent, as technology and consumer habits are evolving at an ever-increasing pace, we don't quite have the luxury of a decade-plus to get things right in this media landscape.”

Despite sluggish hardware adoption, Noland touted the operational progress broadcasters have made with the standard.

“My estimate is that 1.3 million people in the United States today are enjoying High Dynamic Range (HDR) over the air for free for the first time; over half a million are enjoying Dolby Atmos; 1.2 million have access to interactive services, and over a half a million of those can use ‘Start Over TV,’” she said. “This is today, for free, in the United States over the air for the first time ever. So these numbers are growing, and growing fast.”

Noland also hailed the increased international attention on ATSC 3.0 in light of Brazil's adoption of the physical layer of 3.0 last summer.

“For many years, when we talked about ATSC, we naturally led with better television, better picture quality, better audio, better reception, better emergency information, more interactive viewer experiences,” she said. “And those benefits remain absolutely central to the transition now underway in the United States and Brazil and other countries.

“But around the world, governments, regulators, broadcasters and technology companies are increasingly recognizing something even bigger—ATSC 3.0 is not just a television system; it is a flexible IP-based broadcast communications platform capable of delivering many kinds of data services and public interest applications efficiently, securely and at scale,” she added. “In some countries, that broader capability is becoming the starting point of the conversation, whether it’s educational content delivery, resilient emergency communications, automotive applications, software distribution, positioning technology, smart city infrastructure or direct-to-mobile service.”

Shifting the Bipartisan Conversation
In a fireside chat with Noland, National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt praised the technology's momentum but offered a cautious perspective on the timeline for an FCC regulatory decision. In February, the NAB asked the commission to mandate an ATSC 1.0 sunset in the top 75 markets by the end of 2028, with the remaining markets following by the end of 2030.

“We understand that at any particular moment the FCC has a lot of competing priorities, and we need to ensure that the nationwide deployment of ATSC 3.0 is at the very top of that list,” LeGeyt said. “Shifting the conversation from whether ATSC 3.0 is going to be the standard of the future to how we are going to get there is tactical, given the Washington environment we are in.”

LeGeyt also emphasized the rare bipartisan support the standard has maintained on Capitol Hill.

“In a very polarized Washington environment, ATSC 3.0 doesn’t register Republican or Democrat; it registers local,” he said. “And that’s why you've got such positive remarks—maybe emphasizing different features of the technology—from each of the commissioners, as well as the Chairman…this is a transition that's going to need to transcend politics."

BPS Spinoff
LeGeyt used the event to announce the NAB’s launch of Merkhet Solutions, an independent company focused on the commercial deployment of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS). BPS utilizes the NextGen TV standard to deliver precise terrestrial timing and location signals over existing broadcast towers, functioning as a vital backup to satellite-based GPS.

“BPS represents a powerful intersection of innovation, public safety, and opportunity for broadcasters,” LeGeyt said in a statement. “Launching Merkhet Solutions is the next step in commercializing this technology and ensuring it reaches the critical infrastructure operators who need it most, while continuing to create meaningful long-term opportunities for local stations.”

Speaking to attendees, LeGeyt added that BPS offers an opportunity to solve a massive public policy vulnerability while generating an entirely new revenue stream to help accelerate the 3.0 transition.

“We made the determination that for BPS to recognize its full potential—that we at NAB certainly believe that it has, and the NAB member companies on our board of directors believe that it has—not only to solve this important public policy issue, but also as a potential revenue stream for broadcasters, and as an accelerant to ATSC 3.0,” he said.

Sam Matheny, who previously led the NAB’s internal BPS initiatives, has been named CEO of the spinoff.

“BPS solves a problem we can no longer afford to ignore: an entire economy and national security posture resting on a single, contested signal from space,” Matheny said. “We built BPS at NAB because broadcast infrastructure is uniquely suited to deliver assured terrestrial timing at scale. We’re launching Merkhet Solutions because the time to operationalize this technology is now.”

Matheny updated the audience on real-world testing of the system in the Washington, D.C., area.

“We are at an actual critical infrastructure site—that was one of the requirements,” Matheny explained. “Our partner is Dominion Energy. We are at one of the largest power substations on the East Coast and we have put our leader-follower, self-synchronizing network in place with them.”

Plans will initially focus on regional rollouts. “Let’s do more relationships like we have with Dominion Energy, where we can hear directly from critical infrastructure partners on how they want to use it…and how we can best provide BPS as a complement to their GPS,” Matheny said.

Dr. Andrew Hansen, a prominent expert in navigation and timing who was instrumental in developing three global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), was profuse in his praise of BPS, calling the initial testing data "stunning."

“I am jealous—I’ve lived in standards my entire professional career, and 3.0 is a good one,” Hansen remarked. “GPS was a gift to the world; the idea that you can synchronize time around the world to ones of nanoseconds shook physical principles. The idea that we can now do this to ones of nanoseconds with BPS layered on ATSC 3.0 is remarkable.”

Improving the Viewer Experience
While enterprise infrastructure dominated the headlines, the “Better TV” session focused on local enhancements, including interactive applications, content curation and localized accessibility features.

Jason Quinn, director of engineering at New Mexico PBS, highlighted how the technology solves deep structural communication issues in rural, tribal areas. Covering the 27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation, the network is working with partners Ateme and Heartland Video Systems to deploy real-time AI translations and multi-language captioning.

“A lot of unique challenges that communities are facing have nothing to do with broadcast television, but have everything to do with the transfer of information,” Quinn said. Recent over-the-air tests successfully broadcast simultaneous Spanish and Vietnamese AI-translated caption tracks alongside standard English.

On the commercial datacasting side, Joe Fabiano, chief technology officer of EdgeBeam Wireless—a joint venture backed by E.W. Scripps, Gray Media, Nexstar Media Group, and Sinclair—updated attendees on the JV’s tech pipeline.

“We’re helping ATSC advance the standards to bring full IP networking, routing, and peering capabilities into the standard,” Fabiano said, noting that EdgeBeam’s ultimate goal is to blend seamlessly into background consumer ecosystems. “We’re not creating hardware and platforms for the purposes of becoming a hardware manufacturer. We're doing it for the purposes of bridging, so that we disappear into consumer electronics.”

The Race Against Wireless Competitors
The transition isn’t without immediate external competitive threats. During a panel focused on Advanced Emergency Information (AEI), So Vang, vice president of emerging technology at Sinclair subsidiary ONE Media 3.0, issued a blunt warning regarding impending features from the commercial wireless sector.

“We’re talking about keeping broadcasters relevant,” Vang cautioned. “If wireless alerting is going to do exactly what AEI is doing, we better step up and do it…The wireless industry is moving ahead. They will very likely roll out features like AEI—not with full interactivity, but at least with the ability to get a photo or a map to the handset. There’s a live FCC proceeding on that.”

Edward Czarnecki, vice president of global and government affairs at Digital Alert Systems, reminded the room that broadcasters possess a distinct structural advantage. Unlike wireless carriers, which hold blanket legal indemnification from emergency alert liabilities, broadcasters operate under strict statutory local obligations and hold far superior delivery capacity.

“AEI is an informational service, not an alert service,” Czarnecki noted. “We can do a lot more with languages, accessibility and multimedia than the wireless industry can because of our bandwidth and the versatility of the app environment.”

Chicken-and-Egg Redux
NAB’s LeGeyt compared the current 3.0 landscape to the classic “chicken-and-egg” hardware vs. content dilemma that defined the original digital transition decades ago—only this time, the stakes are exponentially higher.

“In order for consumers to see the value proposition of the ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV experience, we need to be implementing and deploying new features that are going to make this really attractive,” LeGeyt said. “And that goes beyond just a great picture. It's all the features that, frankly, may have been an innovation story 10 years ago, but really are just table stakes to compete in this media landscape today.”

The ATSC concluded the day by announcing the recipients of its two most coveted awards. Mark Aitken was named recipient of the Mark Richer Industry Leadership Medal and Julia Kenyon of the CTA received the 2026 Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award.

WASHINGTON—During a major Senate hearing on broadcast ownership caps, witnesses and U.S. Senators generally agreed that local journalism faces serious challenges that threaten local communities and the larger democratic system but had widely divergent views on whether the elimination of broadcast ownership rules would address the problem.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, convened a full committee hearing on Feb. 10 that examined the Federal Communications Commission’s current broadcast media ownership rules for over two hours with four major expert witnesses, including NAB president and CEO, Curtis LeGeyt.

In opening remarks at the hearing, which was titled “We Interrupt This Program: Media Ownership in the Digital Age,” Senator Cruz highlighted the fact that a rapidly changing media landscape has raised many questions about the ongoing relevance of the ownership rules

“It is understandable why Congress placed limits on broadcast media ownership intended to prevent a monopoly on programming and viewpoints,” Cruz said. “Indeed, for much of the last century, holding a broadcast license was often called a license to print money with limited competition, station owners commanded massive audiences and steady profits, but that era has passed. Cable and satellite ushered in 24/7 news, while the internet and mobile technologies unleashed a wave of streaming services, news and entertainment sites and social media flooding American screens with endless content and fragmenting what were previously universal audiences. Today, broadcasters are fighting to stay competitive against media and tech companies with national and often global reach,” raising important questions about whether those rules are “still relevant” or need to be rolled back, eliminated or reformed.

Ranking Member Sen. Maria Cantwell, (D-Washington) highlighted the importance of local news and the ongoing crisis in local journalism but appeared less sympathetic to the idea that eliminating ownership caps would address the problem.

After noting the rise of AI could also accelerate the ongoing decline in local journalism, she pointed to the recent layoffs at the Washington Post and noted that the number of local journalists has declined from 40 per 100,000 people in the U.S. in 2002 to only 8 today.

“I'm here to fight for local journalism,” she said, adding, however, that broadcast industry consolidation could actually reduce the diversity in local news. “If the Nexstar Tegna deal goes through, a single company will control 265 stations capable of reaching 80% of all the television households, more than double the current cap…To me that is not more local voices, that is fewer," she said.

“Changes to the cap do not address the real structural problem, and they risk reducing the diversity of local voices without solving the underlying problems of economics,” she concluded.

In his prepared testimony to the hearing, NAB's LeGeyt highlighted the importance of local broadcast news in providing live-saving information during severe weather events.

“During recent crippling winter storms across vast swaths of the country, and during devastating floods in both Texas and Washington State, it was local broadcasters – not global streamers or national pay-TV channels – that remained on the ground and on the air in those communities, providing life-saving information to their viewers,” LeGeyt said. “And beyond times of emergency, broadcasters are delivering the fact-based, most-trusted journalism that keeps your constituents and communities informed and connected.”

“Unfortunately, this local journalism is facing growing financial pressure,” LeGeyt added, arguing that ownership rules have severely restricted broadcasters’ ability to compete against big tech companies who do not face national ownership caps and have siphoned off billions in ad revenue from local media.

“Fewer than half of TV stations now report that their local news operations are profitable. Facing ever-rising news production costs and declining ad revenues, some broadcasters are simply unable to continue maintaining their own separate news operations,” he said. “Without modernizing these ownership rules, local television news – the last bastion of truly local journalism in many communities – will suffer the same fate as thousands of local newspapers.”

In testimony to the Committee Chris Ruddy, CEO of the cable news network Newsmax argued that ownership rules need to be retained ensure the diversity of local news and to prevent local broadcasters from abusing their power in retransmission consent negotiations with pay TV operators. The market power of larger station groups like Nexstar have already hurt consumers by forcing operators to raise pay TV video process and made it harder for independent media companies to compete with larger media conglomerates, he said.

To bolster his point, Ruddy noted that “last year, Newsmax delivered five times the rating of NewsNation,” yet Nexstar’s market power forced operators in retrans negotiations “not only to carry NewsNation, but to pay license fees higher than that paid to Newsmax.”

Ruddy also dismissed LeGeyt’s argument that ownership caps have produced an "existential crisis” that threatens the future of broadcasting. He stressed that larger station groups remain very profitable, with Nexstar reporting $1.8 billion in earnings before interest depreciation and amortization of $1.8 billion in 2024, Tegna producing $813 million in EBITDA and Sinclair seeing $800 million in EBITDA.

“The broadcast industry has not [offered] the Senate…any data that proves that they're in crisis,” Ruddy said. “If you look at…the top seven TV station groups all made pretty much in excess of $500 million in EBITDA in 2024. They're inventing this because they know they can make billions of dollars by waiving the rule, and it doesn't serve the public interest, competition or the diversity of voices that the public would like, especially with local news.”

Nor will eliminating the ownership rules necessarily produce more investment in local journalism, Ruddy argued. “We know that after Nexstar merged with Tribune, profits surged while employment dropped from 16,193 employees to 12,142 – a 25% decrease – in just one year,” he said. “In 14 markets, Nexstar now operates two highly rated stations but has combined their local newsrooms to cut costs. In its proposed merger with Tegna, Nexstar projects more than $300 million in immediate cost savings, including $135 million from increased retrans fees and $165 million from local station savings—typically that’s achieved through newsroom consolidation.”

“Newsmax is not alone,” in opposing changes in ownership caps. said Ruddy.

“CPAC and the National Religious Broadcasters have both filed objections with the FCC, warning that lifting the cap would harm consumers and suppress diversity of viewpoints," he said.

In contrast Thomas Johnson, former General Council at the FCC and currently Partner and Co-Chair of Issues and Appeals, at Wiley Rein LLP, argued that the FCC should eliminate the rules.

“In my view, all of these prescriptive rules are outdated and ought to be repealed, and chief among these is the national television broadcast ownership cap,” Johnson said.

Johnson also provided extensive legal arguments supporting the idea that the FCC has the power to raise or eliminate the cap.

“As General Counsel, I defended the agency's bipartisan consensus that the agency has legal authority to eliminate that rule, and I continue to believe so today,” he said. “The Court of Appeals here in D.C. looked at the language in the 1996 act and concluded that it was, `only the starting point from which the commission was to assess the need for further change.’ If Congress intended to eliminate that discretion, the court reasoned, “it need only have enshrined the cap in the statute itself,’” which it didn’t.

Johnson said that his firm represents Nexstar but said he was not speaking on the broadcaster’s behalf.

In his testimony Steve Waldman, president, Rebuild Local News, which works to strengthen local journalism highlighted a crisis in local journalism.

“On average, two newspapers close every week in the United States,” he said. “3,500 have shut down in the last 20 years, and perhaps most importantly, in the last 20 years, there's been a 75% drop in the number of local journalists. That's in print, TV, digital, and the consequences for communities are really alarming. Studies show that areas with less local news have more corruption, more government waste, less civic involvement, less volunteering.”

Waldman said his group had not taken a position on whether local ownership caps should be repealed but stressed that eliminating the caps wouldn’t necessarily necessarily increase investment in local news.

“I actually have some sympathy for both of these arguments,” over the ownership rules, he noted. “Local TV news is incredibly important in some places, it's the only thing left. We really agree that this ought to be looked at through the prism of whether or not it helps local news. On the other hand, there really is a lot of evidence that consolidation has gone in the other direction and actually hollowed out some newsrooms. So my advice would be to look at that question through the prism of whether it's good or bad for local news, and specifically look at whether it maintains or increases or reduces the number of local reporters and editors, not the number of hours, because if you have less local reporters and more hours, what you actually have is more superficial local news or more copying” of news.

The full hearing can be viewed below:

WASHINGTON—In response to the controversy over the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show, the NAB’s president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt has posted a blog that strongly defends the First Amendment rights of local broadcasters.

“The controversy surrounding Jimmy Kimmel Live! has sparked understandable questions about broadcasters’ First Amendment rights and the influence of those in power,” he wrote. “This is an unprecedented time in media history and moments like this demand a direct conversation about what is at stake.”

Following remarks by Kimmel about the assassination of Charlie Kirk that FCC Chair Brendan Carr deemed "sick", both Carr and President Donald Trump issued statements threatening the broadcast licenses of stations carrying the show.

ABC decided to put the show on indefinite suspension following announcements by both Nexstar and Sinclair that their stations would not air the program.

That controversy greatly heated up an ongoing debate over regulation of broadcast news content. Carr and Trump have both repeatedly argued that the FCC has the right to yank licenses of stations who violate their public service rules of offering balanced news. Critics, such as FCC chair Anna Gomez, have argued this violates longstanding policy and First Amendment rights.

In his post, LeGeyt wrote “Let me first state affirmatively that broadcasters must be able to make decisions about the content on our airwaves free from government influence. The First Amendment affords our stations — and all Americans — this fundamental right, and the mere perception that broadcasters acted because of undue pressure is a problem for our credibility and the trust we have built with our audiences.”

In asserting this right, LeGeyt did not directly name the Trump administration or comment specifically on the decision to preempt the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Noting that the problem has come from “both political parties”, he specifically offered examples from Democrats attempting to restrict First Amendment Rights.

“During the Obama administration, journalists decried the use of the Espionage Act to investigate reporters and demand their confidential sources. Under the Biden administration, reporters faced growing barriers to access, and local affiliate stations were targeted based on the actions of cable news networks. Today, we continue to see veiled threats suggesting broadcasters should be penalized for airing content that is contrary to a particular point of view. These attempts were wrong then, and they are wrong now.”

“The First Amendment makes clear that broadcasters — not the government — bear the responsibility for editorial decisions,” he argued. “Local radio and television stations take this obligation seriously, working every day to reflect the unique and diverse needs of our communities, especially on sensitive issues. This is what makes local stations the most trusted sources of information. Ultimately, broadcasters are accountable to the viewers and listeners we serve.”

In defending broadcasters First Amendment rights, LeGeyt also took the opportunity to once again highlight the importance of local news and to push for the elimination of ownership caps on broadcast station groups as a way of strengthening the economics of local TV news.

“Beyond the obvious constitutional issues that have been raised, there is another challenge: Broadcasters are already fighting for our future, facing extraordinary disruption in the media ecosystem from Big Tech,” he said. “If the very act of owning or transferring a broadcast license carries the risk of political interference, it will drive investment further away from local stations at the very moment we need more resources to sustain local journalism.

“Make no mistake, NAB is fighting every day in Washington to ensure broadcasters have the scale to compete with national and global behemoths, to invest in newsrooms and local programming, to innovate and deliver freely available content to every American — whether on a television, radio, smartphone or car dashboard,” he concluded. “But all of that is futile if we cannot fulfill our most sacred responsibility: reporting to our communities without fear of government retribution. That is why this week’s celebration of First Amendment Day is not just symbolic. It is a reminder that the ability of local broadcasters to speak without fear of intimidation or interference is essential for the health of our democracy. NAB will continue to defend that freedom — publicly when necessary, and privately when most effective.”

WASHINGTON—NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt met this week with Federal Communications Commission member Olivia Trusty and FCC staffers to urge that the agency move quickly to enact a “long-overdue reform" of the Commission’s broadcast ownership restrictions and pass rules to help the broadcast industry speed the transition to NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0.

In a July 16 letter to the FCC, Rick Kaplan, chief legal officer and executive vice president legal and regulatory affairs at the National Association of Broadcasters, disclosed that on July 14, LeGeyt and Kaplan met with Trusty. her chief of staff and senior counsel, Krista Senell, and her acting legal advisor, Jessica Kinsey, on behalf of the broadcaster trade group.

“Our conversation focused on two urgent and interrelated issues vital to the continued vitality of local broadcasting: (1) the need for long-overdue reform of the Commission’s broadcast-only ownership restrictions; and (2) the critical role the FCC must play in completing a nationwide transition to ATSC 3.0,” Kaplan wrote in the letter.

During the meeting, the NAB officials “emphasized the pressing need for the Commission to modernize both the local radio and television ownership rules and the national TV ownership cap,” the letter said. “These regulatory frameworks were designed for an era that simply no longer exists. Today’s broadcasters face unprecedented competition from national and global digital platforms that are unconstrained by local service obligations, structural limits, or public interest requirements. Without the ability to operate at meaningful scale, local broadcasters struggle to make the investments necessary to serve their communities with trusted local journalism, emergency information, and culturally relevant content. Each day that passes without reform further disadvantages broadcasters—and ultimately the American public—in a land of unconstrained non-broadcast media giants.”

The FCC has issued a Public Notice seeking comments on its ownership rules; comments on that issue are due in August.

In terms of ATSC 3.0, which has been a topic of several recent meetings by both proponents and opponents of the NAB’s plans for the transition, the NAB highlighted ongoing efforts by broadcasters to invest in the new technology while emphasizing that FCC action on ATSC 1.0 sunset and other issues is essential.

“The transition, however, cannot be sustained indefinitely and demands regulatory clarity. Broadcasters need prompt Commission action on pending technical and policy matters, including a clear path forward to complete the transition as set forth in NAB’s petition earlier this year,” the letter noted. “NAB also addressed the disingenuous and blatantly anticompetitive objections registered by certain players in the ecosystem that are clearly threatened by a competitive free video service available to consumers throughout the nation.”

In a recent meeting with the FCC, the Pearl TV consortium of broadcast station owners took a similar tack, arguing that Consumer Technology Association members and TV manufacturers had a conflict of interest in opposing a speedy transition to 3.0 broadcasts. Pearl TV representatives complained that TV set manufacturers are ‘incentivized’ to oppose ATSC 3.0 tuners because their FAST channels compete with broadcasters for ads and audiences and that they were trying to “stifle” broadcast innovation.

Kaplan’s letter to the FCC stressed: “The stakes are high. Local broadcasters are striving to secure a future that is free, local, innovative and resilient. But doing so requires timely, forward-looking action from the Commission. NAB respectfully urges the FCC to move expeditiously on the local and national broadcast ownership and ATSC 3.0 dockets to ensure that broadcasting remains a competitive and meaningful part of the American media landscape.”

The CTA, which represents major consumer technology providers, has opposed both the NAB’s proposals for a mandatory shutdown of ATSC 1.0 signals beginning in 2028 and a requirement that new TV sets have 3.0-capable tuners, saying the transition should be voluntary and that tuner mandates would raise the cost of sets for many buyers who are not interested in getting over-the-air broadcasts.

The CTA, along with groups representing LPTV broadcasters and pay TV operators, met with the FCC in late June to oppose tuner mandates and other aspects of the NAB proposals for the transition.

The full NAB letter is available here.

LAS VEGAS, Nev.—NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt laid out broadcasters’ policy agenda for the 119th Congress during a town hall at the NAB Show on Tuesday, April 8, with modernizing broadcast ownership rules topping a list of six items that also included NextGen TV.

“Broadcasters play a vital role in their communities, from reporting on dangerous weather events to covering local sports and news, and it is truly an honor to advocate on behalf of local stations in Washington,” said NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “In the 119th Congress we are fighting for policies that allow local stations to continue this vital work, from calling on the FCC to modernize ownership regulations to keeping AM radio in cars to keep Americans safe.”

Speaking to a member audience at NAB Show, LeGeyt also announced the launch of a new NAB website that broadcasters can use to inform their advocacy efforts and guide conversations with policymakers.

The website outlines six key policy priorities:

• Modernizing Antiquated Broadcast Ownership Rules to Let Stations Compete
• Keeping AM Radio in Cars to Ensure Public Safety
• Supporting NEXTGEN TV to Protect our Critical Infrastructure
• Preventing Harmful Changes to Existing Advertising Tax Deductibility
• Opposing a New Performance Tax on Local Radio
• Protecting Broadcasters’ Investment in Local Content

Following a successful State Leadership Conference in March, where broadcasters from all 50 states met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act is supported by a filibuster-proof majority of the Senate and over 140 cosponsors in the House. In addition, NAB launched a campaign urging the FCC to modernize outdated broadcast ownership regulations.

Visit nab.org/policypriorities to learn more about the NAB's views on critical issues impacting local stations.

As Americans go to the polls in one of the most bitterly contested elections in U.S. history, National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt has published an opinion piece outlining how broadcasters have been defending democracy with fair and fact-based reporting while facing “increasingly face threats … of broadcast license or spectrum revocations.”

In the opinion piece published on Nov. 5 in The Hill, LeGeyt described broadcaster efforts to combat misinformation during recent hurricane-relief efforts, as well as their work during the 2024 election cycle.

“Now, as voters head to the polls today, local broadcasters will again be on the front lines as our democracy faces one of its most pivotal tests,” he wrote. “Amid an unprecedented wave of misinformation and digital manipulation, local broadcast journalists will be equipped to deliver truth and transparency to the electorate— whatever the result—on and in the days following the election.” LeGeyt also stressed how those efforts by broadcasters are built on longstanding investments in technologies and resources to improve their reporting.

“To start, local broadcasters invested in new technologies that allow us to verify facts in real time,” he noted. “These efforts, combined with new initiatives such as Verify, elDetector, T Verifica and FactCheck.org, allow us to better dispel misinformation and deepfakes through rigorous fact-checking. Our members also devoted significant resources to train our thousands of broadcast journalists across the country to quickly recognize manipulated images and misleading claims. Finally, stations across the country launched initiatives like Martes de Acción to empower Latino communities and ensure all legally eligible voters, from diverse backgrounds and languages, have a clear path to electoral participation.

“Yet, even as we serve our communities, broadcasters increasingly face threats to their ability to do their jobs — either physically through verbal intimidation and violence directed towards our journalists, or politically through threats of broadcast license or spectrum revocations and harassing lawsuits,” he noted.

“As you reflect on our election coverage this week and over the course of this cycle, be mindful that these pressures to limit or even revoke the rights of newsrooms to operate without interference pose a serious threat to our ability to fulfill this civic responsibility,” LeGeyt continued. “Every limitation placed on the press pulls us further from a free and open society. Protecting the First Amendment is not just about preserving a right — it is essential to safeguarding this mission. It allows broadcasters to continue empowering their communities with the truth that strengthens our democracy and defends the freedoms we hold dear.”

Despite those threats, LeGeyt stressed: “I am confident that this week, as local broadcasters deliver the truth our nation needs, Americans will see firsthand the strength and confidence in our institutions that only an informed democracy can bring.”

WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters continued its push to get the FCC to regulate vMVPDs like YouTube TV as traditional pay TV operators during in a recent visit with commissioner Anna Gomez, her chief of staff, Deena Shetler and her policy advisor, Harsha Mudaliar.

The issue is important to station groups, which believe they can increase their retransmission consent revenue if they are able to negotiate directly with YouTube TV, Fubo, Hulu and other vMVPDs.

Currently, station groups handle retrans negotiations with traditional multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) like Charter Communications and Comcast. But broadcast networks and major programmers like The Walt Disney Co. and Paramount Global handle retrans deals with virtual MVPDs because the streaming services are not classified as traditional pay TV operators (or MVPDs) under FCC rules.

Some members of Congress have supported the change, but FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has argued the agency may not have the power to change those rules without Congressional action.

The discussion has also divided the broadcast industry between station owners, who want the vMVPDs reclassified, and broadcast networks owned by major media companies, which want to continue to handle deals with online providers as part of much larger distribution pacts.

The meeting with Gomez and her staff was attended by Curtis LeGeyt, NAB president and CEO, and Rick Kaplan, its chief legal officer and executive vice president.

During the conversation, the NAB emphasized the critical need for the FCC to study how streaming has affected local broadcasting. “It is impossible to understand the demands local stations face without coming to grips with the sea change wrought by streaming,” Kaplan said in a letter to the FCC following the Oct. 3 meeting. “The Commission’s rules were designed for a different world, and if the agency is truly committed to ensuring local service to communities across the nation, then it must examine the interplay between local broadcasting, the dramatic rise of streaming and the unregulated Big Tech behemoths that have shattered the economics underpinning local journalism.”

The NAB representaties at the meeting also expressed their surprise that the commission has not demonstrated greater curiosity about the impact of streaming, Kaplan added.

“While broadcasters have filed comments in docket after docket on issues such as foreign government sponsorship identification, cyber security plans, disaster reporting, proposed rules on generative AI disclosures in political ads, public reporting of station-by-station workforce demographics, retransmission consent impasse reporting, and more, we are left waiting for the Commission to address the one issue that is so forcefully impacting the ability of broadcasters to serve their local communities,” Kaplan wrote. “How is it that the Commission has not examined this issue in earnest since 2014, when it first proposed, for example, to modernize the definition of multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) to include virtual MVPDs? Why, with all of the obvious shifts in the marketplace, has the Commission refrained from considering how these changes are impacting service to local communities?”

The NAB letter also noted that “many Members of Congress agree that this is exactly what the Commission should be examining” and said the FCC should be exploring the issue even if it is unsure of its authority to change the rules. “Why not still inquire about the marketplace even to report its findings to Congress?” Kaplan’s letter asked.

“As we explained, NAB is ready to work with the Commission to help it gain a better understanding of the current marketplace,” Kaplan wrote. “That will require the FCC to seek additional comment from parties in light of the intervening decade since it last sought public input on the issue of virtual MVPDs. The Commission should not fear information and differing viewpoints; rather, it should welcome them.”

The full letter is available here.

In response to the NAB's comments, a spokesperson for the Preserve Viewer Choice Coalition, which is backed by vMVPDs and such major programmers as Disney, Fox and Paramount, said: "Despite assertions by some to the contrary, the FCC has consistently reinforced their lack of authority to upend the streaming marketplace in the way that the big affiliate groups seek – a fact that bipartisan members of Congress have echoed. The reality is, local news is widely available on streaming, providing consumers with a variety of ways to watch. Further, polling shows that few Americans support more streaming regulations. We commend the FCC for their fact-based assessment of the streaming marketplace."

At its annual meeting last week the Advanced Television Systems Committee announced a number of new developments, including a new branding campaign, mission statement and updates on its efforts to expand adoption of the ATSC 3.0 (aka NextGen TV) internationally as well as the campaign to sunset 1.0. But it was perhaps a comment from FCC Commissioner Brendon Carr in a discussion with ATSC President Madeleine Noland that garnered the most attention. 

In a Q&A with Noland, Carr compared the transition from the current ATSC 1.0 standard to 3.0 to the evolution of the mobile wireless industry and, with many broadcasters eager to shut down 1.0 to provide more bandwidth for 3.0, what could happen after the 1.0 sunset. Like wireless, the transition to 3.0 is taking a lightly-regulated, market-based approach, which Carr agreed with. 

“The transition that we see in technologies from a wireless approach is one that we should take here,” Carr said, referring to 3.0. “We largely trust the mobile wireless industry to handle those upgrades in technology… you're getting the playbook here.”

“We have to get to a point of a level regulatory playing field and increased investment,” Carr added. “In broadcasting, we have to allow this flash cut to 3.0 by a date certain and forthrightly and we also need to really consider competition in D.C. around potentially an ‘incentive auction 2.0’ as well.”

Carr elaborated by noting that, when it comes to another auction, “it is important to start to have a conversation about whether there is interest both on the broadcast side and on the commercial wireless side,” adding that “there's no secret in D.C. that we are a little shy on spectrum right now when you look at the cupboards. We've moved a lot of spectrum in the last administration, not so much during this administration. 

“So I do think as we look across the board, there's obviously a lot of folks on the mid-band spectrum,” he continued. “We had a lot of focus on high band spectrum, low band spectrum, and that was considered coverage spectrum. But I do think it's part of the conversation to start to discuss whether again on a voluntary basis, that it makes sense to start thinking about an incentive auction.”

New Branding and Task Force Update
Opening the meeting, President Noland announced a new branding campaign and mission statement for the ATSC, which manages the development of advanced television standards primarily in the U.S., with the goal of expanding adoption worldwide. 

“ATSC is proudly unveiling a new tagline, brand mission and vision along with a modernized logo. Our mission is to empower the broadcasting ecosystem through innovation and collaboration. And our vision is to enable a more connected world that unlocks the full potential of broadcasting.”

As of now, the ATSC will now be referred to as “ATSC - The Broadcast Standards Association,” Noland said. “The changes in the way ATSC envisions itself reflect the new developments taking place in the industry all around us and the U.S. broadcasters are taking advantage of new technologies offering compelling upgrades to free to air services. And at the same time, they're establishing new business units that are unlocking the potential of datacasting as a service.”

Noland also provided members with a progress report on 3.0. “Over 100 models of NextGen TVs are available for consumers to choose from, with another major manufacturer anticipated to launch products for NextGen audiences this year. I'm not allowed to say who that manufacturer is but you can do the math,” she hinted. “And with 75 markets launched reaching approximately 75% of U.S. households, we're seeing national companies exercise the capabilities of ATSC 3.0,” Noland said, noting NBC’s recent announcement that it is offering 3.0 ancillary services such as hyper-localization and start over features from its O&O’s to 3.0 viewers. 

Noland announced that Puerto Rico has adopted ATSC 3.0 and that emergency alert testing is set to take place in Calgary as well as potentially Winnipeg. She also announced the formation of the ATSC Expert Group on 3GPP. 

"There are several ideas across various stakeholders within ATSC membership about powerful synergies between ATSC and 3GPP technologies for mobile broadcasting to broadcast traffic offload, and more," Noland said. "To make meaningful progress on these ideas there needs to be close coordination among ATSC members. By organizing interested ATSC stakeholders we can effectively liaise with 3GPP, the new group will be open to all ATSC members and will be led by Mr. Thomas Janner of Rohde & Schwarz."

Noland also announced the formation of the ATSC Business Advisory Council led by Mary Crebassa of LTN Global. 

"This new council will provide the board with strategic advice from the point of view of business applications and requirements and guidance on technical projects of highest interest as ATSC stakeholders and business goals, potentially including guidance about how best to structure and promote release cycles or ATSC standards," Noland said.

"Members of this council will be appointed by the board with a goal of the group be comprised of people who are primarily business focused within their respective organizations, and together represent various regions around the world and span the myriad industries within the broadcast ecosystem," she added. 

NAB President Curtis LeGeyt updated members on the association’s leadership role in the “Future of TV” task force initiated by the FCC, which includes representatives from the broadcast, manufacturing and related media industries currently meeting in D.C. to negotiate the variety of interests in pushing forward the transition to 3.0.

Although he did not issue a timetable for when the task force would release its long-awaited report, LeGeyt said that “we are working to ensure the nationwide adoption of NextGen TV is as smooth as possible and we aim to release a complete summary of the work done thus far by the Future of Television initiative,” LeGeyt said. “And we're also educating members of Congress on the benefits of NextGen TV and the urgency of deploying the ATSC 3.0 standard nationwide. And as we look ahead to the future, I believe that setting a date to end mandatory simulcasting is a necessary step toward completing the transition to NextGen TV and unlocking all of its benefits.”

Emergency Alerting in 3.0
The two-day meeting also included a discussion on the role of emergency alerting in the world of mobile technology and NextGen TV. 

Commenting on the inadequacy of the current EAS system to meet consumers; evolving needs, Manny Centeno, IPAWS program manager, said “we need to provide better, more rich information to the public so that they can take action. I'm not saying necessarily that this is going to replace the EAS but I say as we go forward and we investigate and we score and visualize and experience the benefits of this type of technology for public safety, we're going to see how antiquated the Emergency Alert System is. I have no issue saying that's, it’s just the reality. We've got to evolve and make it better for everyone. 

“We have been talking about this for a while and now we need to demonstrate and we need to demonstrate it in a way that makes sense that is repeatable by the television stations out there as they program and configure their equipment for ATSC 3.0 alert delivery. This is going to require the partnership of those local, state, territorial and tribal, talking about the FCC, security organizations—both government and private—and we're going to have a lot of tests to make sure that this technology is delivering what we expect it to.”

Consumer Products Outlook
During a discussion on NextGen TV consumer products, CTA’s Richard Kowalski provided a progress report and his viewpoint on the state of the consumer market for 3.0, particularly as more Smart and connected TV’s penetrated U.S. households.

Noting that the majority of 3.0 TVs are premium sets, Kowalski said “we assume there will be an inflection point in the next few years where manufacturers put 3.0 on their TVs and prepare for the broadcasting standard of the future. Right now. We're looking at about 13% of TVs having NextGen TVs and 2024 sets shipping into the market.” 

CTA doesn’t expect a big bump in sales for set top boxes for 3.0 in the near future, due to cost and limited availability, Kowalski said, adding that it’s difficult to estimate when compared to the transition to 1.0 when government incentives enable consumers to purchase low-cost converters.  

Robert Folliard, senior vice president, Government Relations & Distribution at Gray Television, defended broadcasters against naysayers who criticize what many describe as a slow transition to a market-based approach to the transition to 3.0—which began when consumer sets became available in 2020—comparing the current transition to the transition from analog to digital.  

“We're light years ahead of the government mandated transition that was going on 20 years ago. And I think we sometimes lose sight of how much we've accomplished, how much is available and how fast things are moving,” Folliard said. “It's only been recently that we've really started telling consumers why they should buy a set. We've sold 10 million sets and we really haven't told people why they should buy it. We're four years into this and I think sometimes we get upset because we aren't at the finish line yet.”    

Awards were announced at the conclusion of the meeting with Dr. Sung-Ik Park of Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) receiving the organization’s Mark Richer Industry Leadership Medal and Ali Dernaika of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) receiving the Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award.

WASHINGTON—The ATSC announced this week that NAB President Curtis LeGeyt and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will speak at the association’s annual meeting next month at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C.

ATSC’s NextGen Broadcast Conference and Member Meeting will take place June 13 & 14th and will focus on new opportunities for broadcasting utilizing ATSC 3.0, the next-generation broadcast standard that is now available to viewers in 75 markets across the U.S., 80% of viewers in South Korea and soon 66% in Jamaica.

Both LeGeyt and Carr will address the meeting Thursday afternoon, June 13.

“ATSC 3.0 is a robust and flexible wireless system built on an Internet Protocol backbone, ideal for new applications for international business, emergency information, mobility, and remarkable enhancements for traditional TV broadcasting.  Each year, we welcome the broadcast industry to get together and learn about new avenues for next-generation broadcasting, and to hear updates on the deployment of ATSC 3.0 across the world.  We look forward to robust conversations about the latest opportunities to apply flexible ATSC 3.0 broadcasts with local sports, interactive functions, automotive applications and more,” said Madeleine Noland, President of ATSC.

Announced sessions for the Conference include:

• Playing the Game: NEXTGEN TV Sports
• Interactive Apps Unleashed
• Inspiring Consumers: The Latest Research on NEXTGEN TV 
• Datacasting: Leveraging the ATSC 3.0 IP Backbone to Diversify Revenue Streams 
• Are We There Yet? NextGen Automotive TV
• Emergency Messaging Update
• NEXTGEN TV Consumer Devices Update

ATSC Members can participate in all three days of events, including both the ATSC Annual Members Meeting and the vibrant two-day conference. program.  The capstone of the event will be the presentation of the annual Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award and the Mark Richer Medal for industry leadership, the organization’s highest honors, on June 14.  

While the Hotel room block is now closed, ATSC has secured a LIMITED number of rooms at the Marriott Marquis for the conference. If you are interested in booking from this small inventory of available rooms please send an email to: atsc@atsc.org with your rooming requirements and we will respond promptly.

Registration for the event is open on ATSC.org, at:  https://www.atsc.org/events/nextgen-broadcast-conference/

WASHINGTON, D.C.—NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt has agreed to a contract extension that will keep him at the helm of NAB through 2029, according to NAB Joint Board Chair Perry Sook.

The announcement comes at a time when the broadcasting industry is facing rapid changes in the media landscape. The contract extension will provide the NAB with leadership continuity and stability as the group helps the industry navigate those changes and challenges.

LeGeyt has been with NAB for over a decade and assumed his current role on January 1, 2022.

“NAB and its members are thrilled to have Curtis LeGeyt leading our advocacy efforts in Washington and delighted about his contract extension,” said Sook, chairman and CEO of Nexstar Media Group. “Curtis has demonstrated exceptional leadership, strategic thinking and an unwavering dedication to the future of broadcasting, ensuring NAB remains at the forefront of innovation. We are confident in his ability to drive continued success for NAB and its members.”

"I am deeply honored to be entrusted with the leadership of NAB,” said LeGeyt. “Representing the broadcast television and radio stations that unite our communities during this transformative period in media is a privilege. The growing importance of our stations in delivering news and information Americans can trust drives my commitment to this vital industry. I am grateful for the faith placed in me by the NAB Board of Directors and our members, and I am committed to an innovation agenda that allows local TV and radio to thrive well into the future for the betterment of our communities."

During LeGeyt’s tenure as president and CEO, the organization has successfully advocated for policies to level the playing field with big tech, enable access to AM radio in the automobile, prevent a new radio performance fee and has furthered the deployment of ATSC 3.0. Additionally, NAB achieved a significant reduction in broadcast regulatory fees for local stations and successfully litigated for the Federal Communications Commission to provide a meaningful review of broadcast ownership rules, the group said.

LeGeyt has also provided steady leadership and strategic direction for the revitalization of NAB Show in the post-COVID era. Strong revenue from NAB Show and its marquee events, combined with support from association members, has contributed to NAB’s fiscal health and long-term security, the group said.

Last week, NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt keynoted the 2024 TV Tech Summit. Here is an edited transcript of his discussion with TV Tech Content Director Tom Butts. 

TV Tech: Thank you, Curtis for joining us today. What does the NAB consider the key challenges facing the broadcasting industry today and how is it addressing them? 

Curtis LeGeyt: I think we are in a moment here in the lead up to the 2024 election where the work that local stations across the country are doing to inform communities with trusted information has never been more important. In terms of challenges, we've got to ensure that local stations continue to provide that value to communities every day as an antidote to the misinformation and disinformation that's accessible online through the big tech platforms. 

The challenge is that we're competing with one arm tied behind our backs. The current regulations around television ownership are desperately in need of modernization in order to allow local broadcasters to achieve the scale to better compete for advertising dollars and audience. Similarly, we've been advocating for a lead piece of legislation, the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act” that would enable broadcasters to be fairly compensated when our content is accessed through the online platforms—Google and Facebook—absent reforms that will enable that type of fair compensation. 

This puts real challenges on the broadcast model and all of this is exacerbated by the emergence of generative AI. As communities are increasingly relying on these tools to get their information we've got to ensure that local broadcasters first are fairly compensated when our content and our models are used to train these tools. And we've got to ensure that for our trusted local personalities, that we've got some guardrails in place to ensure that their images and likenesses are protected in this new environment of deep fakes. 

And I think about the burden that all of this places on our newsrooms to decipher fact from fiction before we air certain video clips or images over our airwaves. All of this is something that local broadcasters are dealing with everyday.

TVT: Thanks, Curtis, you've laid a great foundation for our conversation today. So we're gonna delve into some of these subjects in a little bit more detail: How do you see the role of traditional broadcasting evolving in the age of streaming services? And part two of my question: Should Congress regulate virtual MVPDs, such as YouTube TV and Hulu TV Plus and similar services, like traditional cable and satellite? And if so, why?

CL: Well, local broadcasters need to be accessible wherever, however our audiences want to consume us. And so there is no doubt that as audiences are migrating to streaming—whether it is virtual MVPDs or otherwise—local broadcasts need to be accessible; that's the table stakes. 

I look at all of this in terms of your question around the right regulatory backstop through the lens of the last 30 years. And what we have seen is that certainly the laws that have enabled local broadcast stations to secure carriage on cable and satellite providers either through must-carry or through the retransmission consent system have enabled the proliferation of a local broadcast system. There's a reason why Americans aren't simply getting their news through national telecasts from New York or San Francisco—certainly we have that option, if we want it. 

But the current regime has worked in the traditional ecosystem to ensure that every local community is served by a local broadcast station rather than a national alternative. So I think it's premature to say whether Congress should be regulating this space going forward in a very specific way. But what I can say is that the FCC needs to take a hard look at this; we've asked the FCC to reopen its record in the currently dormant virtual MVPD proceeding that it opened nearly 10 years ago, and to ask these questions and examine the impact that the proliferation of streaming is having on consumers’ access to local broadcast. And we're gonna continue to push for that.

TVT: What are some of the  initiatives the NAB is undertaking to not only recruit new blood but to make sure that diversity and inclusion is supported within the broadcasting industry?

CL: Over my first year as CEO, when I spent a great deal of time touring the country and meeting with stations—especially in smaller and midsize markets—this issue of recruitment was the one that I heard most frequently. Everybody recognizes NAB and the resources that we put into advocacy, but outside of advocacy, this challenge of recruitment, and getting the next generation of talent into broadcasting is what I would characterize as the existential challenge that I heard most frequently from broadcasters across the country. So it's something that is very, very much a focus, both of NAB and our Leadership Foundation. 

We recently rolled out our new “You Belong Here’' recruitment campaign. And what the campaign aims to do is to equip local stations with PSAs and digital tools that they can customize to market themselves to the next generation of broadcasters—not simply in the traditional sense, such as broadcast talent, but also in terms of engineering, sales and marketing departments. That is the place where we've got to ensure that this generation that is really looking for an industry that offers a career that is purpose-driven, understands the opportunities that exist in local broadcasting

I think certainly our value proposition on providing trusted information to local communities in this moment of massive disinformation online is a real calling. So we've got to do a better job of—no pun intended—”broadcasting” that. This campaign also builds on an incredibly robust database of job postings across the country in partnership with broadcast state associations in every state to ensure that we become a “one stop shop” for both job seekers and for the industry. 

In terms of diversity, equity and inclusion, I'm tremendously proud of the work that we are doing. Our Chief Diversity Officer Michelle Duke has really run point on offering an HR DEI forum that brings together industry HR leaders to discuss the challenges in attracting a diverse workforce. 

We've got to be in the business of representing the diversity of the communities we serve—that's our competitive advantage. And so helping to foster that dialogue is significant to what we're trying to achieve on behalf of the industry. We run a 10-month Executive MBA-style program for senior level broadcasters, particularly women and people of color that helps to ensure that if you're an emerging leader in this industry, we’re going to ensure that you get some exposure to finance, that you get some exposure to production, that you've got the the well-rounded perspective that it's going to take to get into leadership.

TVT: Let’s talk ATSC 3.0, the future of broadcast. What’s your take on the current status of the transition?  

CL: I'm tremendously proud of the work that the industry has done to get the ATSC 3.0 deployment to a place where a 3.0 signal is accessible to roughly 80% of viewers across the country. And that is a tremendous, tremendous accomplishment, especially when you layer on both the fiscal and the practical challenges that Covid presented. 

But the most difficult piece of this transition is what lies in front of us. We are focused on working in partnership with the FCC on its “Future of Television” initiative. That is an extremely important step to get us from where we are today over the finish line. First, this initiative gave the FCC an opportunity to put its imprimatur on the fact that this transition will happen and provide certainty to the consumer groups, certainty to the consumer electronics industry and certainty to our pay TV partners that this is where we are going and it's just a matter of how we get there and not whether we get there. 

NAB has taken the lead on this and we’re nine months into a series of meetings that are focused in three different areas. The first working group focuses on backwards compatibility, tuner availability and consumer issues, effectively ensuring that consumers will have ongoing access to broadcast television during this transition. 

The second group is focused on completing that deployment, ensuring that ATSC 3.0 is not only accessible across the country, but that we migrate away from this model of simply channel sharing and can bring this deployment to a place where every station has the the bandwidth to offer a really immersive consumer experience—we’re talking about 4K, immersive audio, more interactive programming and more tailored advertising that's a win both for the consumer and for the business side.

The third working group is a bit more DC-focused which is looking at the post 3.0 transition regulatory regime and whether there are some tweaks to the existing laws that are needed to account for what broadcaste looks like after this transition. 

TVT: How are NAB and broadcasters responding to the increasing use of artificial intelligence and what impact will this have on our industry?

CL: There's certainly some opportunities and then there are some challenges that go along with that. I think local broadcasting's unique competitive advantage is the people that we have on the ground and the more that we can utilize these [AI] tools—whether it is for script writing, back office tasks, gaining efficiency in the way that we do our production—that will free up our people to be present in their communities. And whether it's in the news and investigative reporting, or just frankly, community engagement, that is where these generative AI tools can really help us not just compete, but thrive relative to our video marketplace competitors who just aren't doing that local work. 

But there are challenges. I alluded to these earlier, but ensuring that there's going to continue to be a viable model for local journalism, local broadcast, as these tools are not only using our content to ingest and populate their databases, but also to effectively train to serve as potential competitors for what we do—that's a potential problem. 

Back to trust, we are only as good as the trust that audiences have in our local anchors—they are the most trusted because these communities know these people, they're in the grocery store, they're in the town hall, they're in the schools with them every single day. 

I really worry about manipulation of our image and likeness and ensuring the right legal guardrails are in place to protect against that. And I do worry about the burden that all of this disinformation that is going to be really exacerbated by these generative AI tools, that they are misused—I really worry about the burden that puts on our newsrooms. 

For example, in the immediate aftermath on October 7 of the horrible terrorist attacks in Israel, Wendy McMahon with CBS stated that, as they as they scoured social media and went through videos—all of which are alleged to be of the attacks that took place that day—literally, less than 10% of those videos were accurate and authentic. And so that is what we are up against every single day here. And we've got to ensure that our stations have the tools to decipher that.

TVT: What are you most excited about for the upcoming NAB Show? 

CL: I'm extremely excited for the show. We're expecting more than 70,000 attendees out in Las Vegas this year. I'm going to be kicking things off on Monday morning with a fireside chat with Adrienne Bankert (NewsNation), which I'm extremely excited about. 

We're also going to be adding onto that main stage, a keynote with Amica, an autonomously AI powered humanoid robot who is going to be walking through some some data that they've gathered on the impact on generative AI on media and media consumption. So I just think that is going to be a cutting edge way to look at all of these issues that our audience and our attendees at the show are going to really enjoy. 

We're continuing to build the core pillars of the show which are  content creation, distribution, monetization. We are going to be exploring all the latest technologies and will have some phenomenal keynotes. 

I do think what's layered on top of all of this is the ever presence of these generative AI tools. We have literally dozens of programs across every vertical exploring the impact of generative AI on every element of broadcast production, and distribution and monetization. So I think it is just going to be a revolutionary event for those who are trying to stay on the cutting edge.

You can watch the TV Tech Summit on demand here. 

WASHINGTON—More than 550 radio and television broadcasters from across the country have gathered in Washington, D.C., for the National Association of Broadcasters’ (NAB) annual State Leadership Conference (SLC) this week. Tuesday’s conference, held at Washington Nationals Park and emceed by Emmy award winning journalist Michelle Marsh from WJLA-TV, featured remarks from policymakers, panel discussions and briefings preparing attendees for meetings with legislators on Wednesday, March 6.

In his remarks to attendees, NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt underscored the critical role local stations play in delivering reliable and trusted information to their communities, particularly in an election year. LeGeyt also called for the passage of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) to what the NAB says is to ”level the playing field with the Big Tech companies that utilize broadcasters’ content without compensation, and the overwhelming bipartisan support for the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (LA-4) gave an update on the House’s legislative activity and noted the importance of broadcasters being in Washington to personally meet with their legislators. Johnson, a former broadcaster and cosponsor of the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act and the Local Radio Freedom Act, also discussed the importance of broadcasters delivering local content and sharing life-saving information during natural disasters. LeGeyt and Johnson also discussed the JCPA, the dominant market power of the Big Tech companies and the rapid evolution of AI and its impact on broadcast journalism.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján (NM), a leader on both the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act and the Local Radio Freedom Act, also spoke at the conference. Luján acknowledged the power of local broadcasters’ reach in vast geographical landscapes like New Mexico, and noted the important role AM radio played during the state’s recent devastating wildfires. He shared when other communications mediums failed, broadcast radio remained on the air, delivering critical, life-saving information. Luján also spoke about the crucial role broadcasters play in delivering trusted information to their viewers and listeners, especially with the increased spread of disinformation and misinformation on social media.

During a Q&A with Rick Kaplan, chief legal officer and executive vice president of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at NAB, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez discussed her experience prior to serving on the commission, including her role in the digital television transition. She also spoke about the importance of broadcasting to individual households and broadcasters’ trusted role in localism. Kaplan and Gomez discussed the rapid rise of AI and the implications for broadcasters and other industries regulated by the Commission.

Other highlights included: honoring outgoing NASBA President Dewey Bruce, president and CEO of the Montana Broadcasters Association; recognizing incoming NASBA President Wendy Paulson, executive director of the Minnesota Broadcasters Association; a panel on the challenges and opportunities of AI content in broadcasting; a briefing from the NAB Government Relations team focused on key issues for broadcasters, including the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, the Local Radio Freedom Act and artificial intelligence (AI).

On Wednesday, SLC attendees travel to Capitol Hill to meet with their members of Congress to discuss Broadcasters’ Policy Agenda for the remainder of the 118th Congress. Issues include the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act and the Local Radio Freedom Act.

In testimony in front of Congress this week, NAB President Curtis LeGeyt warned lawmakers that while the increasing use of artificial intelligence could help broadcasters better inform consumers, they need to keep a “close eye” on its risks, particularly in terms of copyright and misinformation. 

Speaking to the  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law hearing, Oversight of A.I.: The Future of Journalism, on Wednesday, LeGeyt echoed many of the concerns that had been raised in a blog posted to nab.org last spring by Anna Chauvet, vice president of public policy for the association.

After citing numerous studies showing local TV and radio broadcasters the most trusted source of news and information in local communities, LeGeyt noted that AI has great potential in helping broadcasters make news more accurate and accessible. 

“One broadcaster is piloting a tool that will use AI to quickly cull through inbound tips from email and social media to produce recommendations that they can verify and turn into impactful stories,” LeGeyt told the committee. “Other broadcasters are using AI to translate their stories into other languages to better serve diverse audiences. When AI can help these local journalists—real people—perform their jobs in their communities, we welcome it.”

Nevertheless concerns over the use of AI to violate copyright laws and promote misinformation are well known and make broadcasters more vulnerable when AI is used illegally.  

“The use of broadcasters’ news content in AI models, without authorization, diminishes our audience trust and our reinvestment in local news,” LeGeyt said, citing a recent example of a West Virginia TV station having its news content lifted word for word by an unidentified “well-known” AI without its knowledge or consent. 

“Not only are broadcasters losing out on compensation, but this unauthorized usage risks undermining trust as stations lose control over how their content is used and whether it is integrated with other unverified information,” LeGeyt added. 

LeGeyt also warned about the use of AI to mimic the likenesses of TV or radio personalities to make it appear that they are spreading misinformation, hatred, perpetuating fraud, and even altering the image of a well-known anchor to advertise or promote something without their knowledge or consent. 

Such “deep fakes” also spread to actual news reporting, LeGeyt noted, citing the use of AI-manipulated video in reporting on the violence in the Middle East. 

"Following the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, fake photos and videos reached an unprecedented level on social media in a matter of minutes,” LeGeyt said. “Of the thousands of videos that one broadcast network sifted through to report on the attacks, only 10% of them were authentic and usable.”

While LeGeyt did not ask Congress to consider new legislation to combat these issues, the NAB has come out in favor of the “Journalism Competition and Preservation Act,” which was passed by the Senate last summer and would create a limited safe harbor to allow broadcasters to negotiate the fair market value of their content.

With increasing competition from AI-obsessed Silicon Valley, LeGeyt asked the subcommittee to remain vigilant.

“America’s broadcasters are extremely proud of the role we play in serving your constituents, and we are eager to embrace AI when it can be harnessed to enhance that critical role,” he said. “However, as we have seen in the cautionary tale of Big Tech, exploitation of new technologies can undermine local news. This subcommittee is wise to keep a close eye on AI, as well as the way our current laws are applied to it.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) hosted a virtual town hall for members on Sept. 28 where it provided updates on NAB’s policy priorities for the rest of the year and answered member questions. 

During the Town Hall, NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt and executive vice president of industry affairs April Carty-Sipp also discussed the association’s advocacy efforts, educational initiatives and innovation projects.

LeGeyt discussed his recent testimony at a House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing on the state of the video marketplace and explained how NAB is urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to refresh the record in its 2014 proceeding on the regulatory framework for virtual multichannel video programming distributors.

“We now have a major disruption underway and those audiences are migrating from cable and satellite over to the virtual MVPDs, and that’s having an impact on local broadcasters,” said LeGeyt. “What we’re asking the FCC to do is to reopen a proceeding that has been dormant for the last nine years that takes a look at whether those rules of the road that apply to the cable and satellite services ought to be extended to virtual MVPDs.”

LeGeyt also spoke about why it is critical that the FCC reform ownership, spotlighted NAB’s successful efforts to reduce broadcast regulatory fees on local stations, discussed the need for clarity in the FCC’s merger review process, provided an update on NAB’s advocacy against performance royalty legislation and talked about navigating partisan gridlock in Congress, among other topics. 

LeGeyt also stressed the importance of broadcasters’ grassroots involvement towards ensuring commonsense, effective laws and regulations governing the industry.

“The fact is lawmakers, the FCC, they want to hear from local broadcasters across the country,” said LeGeyt. “Certainly we can be making the policy arguments as a trade association here in Washington but our members need to tell the story of how this is impacting their service. And I would just urge you to visit our website – all the tools that you need are there – and staying in close partnership, that’s how we are going to be successful in Washington.”

During the meeting, LeGeyt and Carty-Sipp also urged NAB members to take advantage of educational resources available to them, including professional development initiatives through the NAB Leadership Foundation, DEI resources for broadcasters to diversify their workforces and cost-saving benefit programs.

LeGeyt and Carty-Sipp gave NAB members an overview of the educational sessions and innovative products that will be on display at NAB Show New York, October 24-26. This includes showcases of Next Gen TV and radio in the automotive dashboard, sessions dedicated to strategies, insights and tools to enhance broadcast businesses, and the Marconi Radio Awards honoring radio stations and talent from around the country.

The town hall concluded with LeGeyt sharing his perspective about the ongoing deployment of NextGen TV and the work of the Future of TV Initiative.

LeGeyt also answered questions regarding the ongoing Depend on AM Radio campaign and the status of the AM Radio For Every Vehicle Act, which now has more than 190 House and Senate cosponsors.

“Over the course of the last six months, local broadcasters around the country have been airing spots highlighting the importance of AM radio, the need for the automakers to maintain AM radio in the automobile. Local personalities have been highlighting this issue for their listeners, and as a result, those listeners have been taking action,” said LeGeyt. “More than 360,000 emails have come from listeners across the country to members of Congress, another 40,000 or so hits on social media. So the volume that we’ve been able to raise on this issue has been absolutely incredible and I think all of that activity is really generating the momentum that you’re seeing on Capitol Hill.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.—NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt will be highlighting a number of issues needing Congressional and FCC action when he testifies today, Sept. 13, at a House Communications and Technology Subcommittee hearing titled “Lights, Camera, Subscriptions: State of the Video Marketplace.” 

In his oral and written testimony, the NAB said that LeGeyt will urge congressional action that would enable broadcasters to fairly compete and expand viewer and listener access to their services by passing the AM Radio For Every Vehicle Act and legislation reinstating the Diversity Tax Certificate program. 

LeGeyt will also discuss why the FCC urgently needs to modernize broadcast ownership rules, create a more transparent, fair and predictable process for broadcaster transactions, refresh the record in its vMVPD proceeding and encourage the rollout of NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0.

The hearing follows a recent blog post by LeGeyt detailing important areas where FCC action is necessary to keep broadcasting strong and enable vital local news. The blog was published after the confirmation of Anna Gomez to the FCC, with LeGeyt writing that an "FCC fully seated with all five commissioners can be the catalyst to keep broadcasting strong for the millions who depend on our free, locally-focused service."

In written testimony to the Subcommittee released by the NAB prior to the hearing, LeGeyt noted that as “we celebrate broadcasting’s centennial anniversary,...[b]roadcasters’ critical role as first informers, emergency lifelines and entertainment media has never been more important as misinformation runs rampant online. Yet significant shifts in the media and advertising marketplace pose challenges to this uniquely free and local model, absent needed congressional and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attention.”

“In today’s hyper-competitive media landscape, broadcasting remains the most popular source of news, entertainment programming, sports and investigative journalism in communities across America,” LeGeyt said. “More than 181 million adults watch broadcast TV on a monthly basis, and more than 227 million listeners tune into broadcast radio each week. For the 2022-23 TV season, 79 of the top 100 series in primetime were aired by broadcasters.”

Unfortunately, broadcasters are currently forced to compete for audiences and ad dollars in a media landscape where they are forced to “operate under a set of outdated rules and restrictions....while other media and big tech platforms operate without restraint,” he said. 

“These challenges are exacerbated by Big Tech’s market power and largely unregulated practices in both the marketplace for digital advertising and as gatekeepers to digital content, including the local broadcast news that is accessed online (or in the automobile).” he said. “These collective pressures divert local advertising revenue away from broadcasters, making our uniquely free and local service that much more difficult to support. It also devalues our product when it is accessed online.”

To address those challenges LeGeyt urged congress to pass the AM Radio For Every Vehicle Act (H.R. 3414) and to pass legislation to reinstate the Diversity Tax Certificate program, which would help diversify ownership of broadcast companies. 

LeGeyt also urged Congress to encourage the FCC to make several reforms that will enable broadcasters to compete on a level playing field. 

These include: 

• “Modernize its local and national broadcast ownership rules to account for the rise, and increasing dominance, of digital media,” he said. “Modernizing these decades-old rules would allow broadcasters to continue to serve local viewers in a way no other platform can. It would allow broadcasters to compete for audiences, advertising and investment against digital platforms operated by tech giants with market caps in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Such reform would safeguard the viability of local broadcast journalism, as broadcasters could leverage local economies of scale and spread the significant cost of news production across more outlets. A recent survey confirms that larger market broadcast stations, and those stations with the resources to hire more staff, produce more hours of local news than small market stations and those with smaller news staffs.24 Modernizing ownership regulations also makes broadcasting more desirable for potential investors and new entrants, ensuring continued investment and encouraging greater diversity in local broadcasting and content.
• “Create a more transparent, fair and predictable process for broadcaster transactions. Mergers and acquisitions enable stations to achieve the economies of scale and scope that are necessary for broadcasters to thrive and serve their local audiences. If the FCC’s procedure governing transactions is fair and provides more business certainty, companies may be encouraged to pursue mergers that could help them better compete and invest in the critical local journalism they provide. A more transparent, just and predictable process allows broadcasters a legitimate chance to compete in the marketplace and continue serving the public.”
• “Refresh the record in its vMVPD proceeding. In 2014, the FCC initiated a proceeding to consider modernizing the definition of multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to include virtual streaming services that offer linear programming. Nearly a decade later, the media landscape has completely transformed, yet the FCC’s languishing record does not reflect that drastic change and its impact on consumer access to local broadcast stations. There is simply no reason the FCC should not at least refresh its record in this proceeding to better reflect current marketplace realities.”
• “Continue to support the rollout of NextGen TV. Television broadcasters are transitioning our over-the-air broadcasts to a Next Generation Television standard, also known as ATSC 3.0. NextGen TV will enable local television broadcast stations to deliver a higher quality picture, immersive audio, more diverse programming, interactive content, and advanced emergency services. We appreciate the Commission’s support of the Future of Television Initiative, a partnership helping to bring the reality of NextGen TV to viewers across the country and unlock cutting-edge services that benefit public safety, close the digital divide and revolutionize broadcast TV. Ongoing oversight is critical to ensure a successful nationwide rollout.”

Following the Senate confirmation of Anna Gomez to the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday, Sept. 7, the head of the National Association of Broadcasters published a blog about how the commission can better support local broadcasting.

In his blog post, titled “A Fully Seated FCC Can Enable Increased Investment and Expand Consumer Access to America’s Most Trusted Medium: Local Broadcasting,” NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt wrote that there are three important areas where FCC action is necessary “to keep broadcasting strong for the millions who depend on our free, locally-focused service.”

With her confirmation, Gomez will fill a Democratic seat that has remained open since President Biden took office, in part because of the long and ultimately fruitless push to install Gigi Sohn in that seat. Thus, the commission’s longstanding 2-2 political standstill is no more. With a fully-seated, five-person commission, LeGeyt said the FCC can now act as a “catalyst” to make necessary changes and advancements for broadcasters and their audiences.

“At this critical juncture, NAB looks forward to working with the five commissioners to ensure broadcasters’ ability to grow our life-line service to the benefit of viewers and listeners across the country,” wrote LeGeyt.

He said the trusted news sources and local broadcasters that the public depends on ” face enormous challenges in a hyper-competitive marketplace that have been exacerbated by asymmetric regulations.”

LeGeyt goes on to propose that the FCC modernize broadcast ownership rules, help ensure that viewers have access to their local broadcast stations on virtual platforms and confirm that FCC’s merger review process will conclude with an up or down vote in a “timely fashion.”

“Unfortunately, opaque and shifting guidelines about broadcaster transactions can deter potential buyers from investing in new and established entrants,” wrote LeGeyt. “This would-be investment can save struggling newsrooms and preserve local journalism.”

In addition to his requests for action, LeGeyt also notes some of the policy progress that has been made in recent months to support broadcasters, including recently announced initiatives on ATSC 3.0 and AM radio. 

"By modernizing its regulatory fee structure, the Commission has taken steps to reduce the disproportionate fees broadcasters pay for work done on behalf of other industries," LeGeyt wrote. "This will allow stations—particularly in smaller markets— to reinvest in providing the best local service. And the Commission’s launch of the Future of Television Initiative, a public-private partnership helping to bring the reality of Next Generation TV (ATSC 3.0) to viewers across the country, has the potential to unlock cutting-edge services that benefit public safety, close the digital divide and revolutionize broadcast TV."

He also applauded Congress' work on legislation to ensure the inclusion of AM radio in cars 

“I am grateful for the 184 bipartisan cosponsors of the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act — legislation that will ensure the availability of AM radio in every automobile. I also applaud the Senate Judiciary Committee’s recent bipartisan passage of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act — a bill that would arm broadcasters and other local news outlets with the necessary scale to negotiate fairly with dominant digital platforms.”

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on TV Tech sister brand Radio World. 

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Curtis LeGeyt, president and CEO of the National Association Of Broadcasters has issued a strong rebuke to the FCC regarding its handling of Standard General’s proposed acquisition of Tegna. 

LeGeyt’s criticism follows a number of others who have expressed concerns about the FCC’s unwillingness to quickly act on the deal, which was proposed more than a year ago. The deal is set to unravel unless it is approved by the FCC by May 22, when Standard General’s financial commitments to fund the deal expires. 

“Earlier this week, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) took to the Senate floor to express his concerns over the Federal Communications Commission’s review of the proposed Standard General – Tegna transaction,” LeGeyt noted in a blog post. “He is the latest in a chorus of alarm bells sounding over a flawed merger review process that risks undermining both investment in local television stations’ free service to the public and media diversity.”

Unlike the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, which has already reviewed the proposed acquisition and did not challenge the deal, LeGeyt said “FCC dragged its feet, substantially exceeding its self-imposed 180-day review period and causing a great deal of uncertainty for the parties involved. Then, the Commission’s Media Bureau surprisingly announced that it was designating the transaction for a hearing before an administrative law judge. That decision – made approximately one year after the acquisition was announced without a vote from the FCC Commissioners themselves – sent this deal to a regulatory purgatory from which no transaction has ever returned.”

While the NAB does not take a position on potential deals by specific broadcasters, LeGeyt added that “the FCC’s actions raise serious concerns about the future of ALL broadcast transactions which may have a profound impact on broadcast viewers.”

LeGeyt also complained that the decision to refer the deal to an administrative judge was made by FCC staff members, not a vote by Commissioners “who should be making the critical decisions that can impact the broadcast industry and the hundreds of millions of viewers who rely on this free service.”

“Second, the drawn out review of this transaction for nearly a year demonstrates that the FCC’s self-imposed 180-day shot clock is nothing more than an illusion,” LeGeyt added. “The failure to abide by this self-imposed timeframe, which is intended to streamline the process, has real-world consequences for merging parties, as well as for the entire broadcast industry,” making it harder for them to “to respond to a rapidly changing marketplace. At a time when broadcasters face increasing competition from big tech behemoths that have little to no regulation, this inaction by the FCC further disadvantages these broadcasters and the public who rely upon them. It can also discourage companies from pursuing mergers that could help them better compete and better invest in the critical local journalism they provide.”

LeGeyt also slammed the “the current amorphous `public interest’ review standard in this case” that allowed “the Commission to justify its actions by ad hoc concerns unrelated to its mandate, while at the same time deprioritizing the fact that the transaction “would make Tegna the largest minority-owned broadcast station group in the country,” as Senator Menendez noted in his remarks.”

This case, he concluded “has exposed the flaws in the current system of transaction review, and it is our hope that FCC will reverse course and correct this miscarriage of justice. We must create a more transparent, fair and predictable environment that allows broadcast companies a fair chance to compete in the marketplace and continue serving the public. Otherwise, the critical local journalism that broadcasters provide is in jeopardy.”

This year’s NAB Show marks a major milestone, 100 years of the event.

From its beginnings in New York in 1923, to its current home in Las Vegas, NAB Show is the largest event for media, entertainment and technology.

TV Tech sister brand TVBEurope caught up with NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt to hear about the plans for this year’s big celebration, which technologies he’s excited to see on the show floor, and where NAB Show could be when it celebrates its 200th birthday.

This year marks the NAB Show Centennial – how will the show celebrate that milestone?

The 100-year anniversary of NAB Show is an exciting time and we will have in-person and virtual opportunities for attendees, exhibitors and partners to come together, share their memories and celebrate this great community and a century of innovation. We’re going to have on-site parties and events during the show, and we’ve already started recognising great moments from the past 100 years at https://www.nab.org/100/.

What does it mean for NAB Show to reach such a significant number?

NAB Show’s history tells the story of the media and entertainment industry’s evolution from the early days of radio broadcasting to the introduction of moving images to the dawn of film, TV, cable, satellite and streaming. With every NAB Show, our industry advances and evolves as inventors, visionaries and entrepreneurs introduce cutting-edge technologies and products that spark improvements in storytelling. 

Throughout its history, NAB Show has been an innovation launch pad, and each show is another step toward our future. There is something incredible about 100 years of transformation, and equally special in knowing that we will gather again and see innovative technologies and solutions that will help to shape the next century. 

What would you say are the highlights of NAB Show’s last 100 years?

We actually have an interactive timeline at nab.org/100/timeline that documents many great moments in NAB Show history. One highlight that stands out to me was the appearance at the 1961 NAB convention of President John F Kennedy, who is one of nine US presidents that have spoken at NAB conventions. During his appearance, President Kennedy was joined by Alan Shepard, who had just completed America’s first spaceflight, and called upon America’s broadcasters to be partners in the US space programme.

Countless technologies have made their debut at the show over the years. The 1995 NAB Show featured the first public demonstration of streaming video technology, while the 2006 convention featured the first public presentation, outside of Japan, of NHK’s Ultra HDTV system and the debut of the Red One camera. These are just a few of the impressive list of innovations introduced at the show over the years.

Another highlight that stands out is the attendance record set in 2000, when 115,000 people visited the show. For me, the return to an in-person event for the 2022 NAB Show will always be memorable. Not only was it my first year leading this great organisation, but it was rejuvenating for our community to come back to NAB Show after three long years apart. 

What’s next for the show, do you expect it still to be going in another 100 years?

We expect that NAB Show will still be going strong in another 100 years but we’ll continue to evolve as we have since the first convention.  

That evolution is evident at this year’s show. We are striving to make it even more memorable and personal for every participant, and that the show floor and educational programme reflect the content lifecycle to make it easier for every attendee to find what is most relevant to them. Our task going forward is to further refine that experience so that it remains relevant and useful for individual attendees and for exhibitors showcasing technologies and solutions.

As the most important event for the media and entertainment industry, NAB Show is a model for the industry and beyond, and we recognise the importance of becoming more sustainable. We have launched a new awards program to recognize individuals, companies and products that are promoting conservation and reusability of natural resources. We are donating the proceeds from that program to Creative Visions, a non-profit that uses arts and media to empower creative activists as they raise awareness of critical issues. This is another important area of focus for us as we do our part for a greater good in the years to come.

In terms of this year’s event, what should visitors be looking out for?

Visitors to this year’s show should look out for Experiential Zones, which focus on the content lifecycle from three perspectives — inspiration, innovation and implementation — and offer resources including free learning sessions, technology briefings and demonstrations, networking opportunities and showcases with industry startups. In the Central Hall, they will find CineCentral, where the spotlight will shine on cinematic technology and techniques, with an emphasis on how they are now being used in traditional live broadcast projects. That area will feature workshops by the Society of Camera Operators, American Cinema Editors and American Society of Cinematographers and a 16MM film loading workshop by KODAK.

On the floor, the Streaming Experience will be integrated into the Connect Experiential Zone in the West Hall. This unique display provides the view from the “living room” and provides a great way to get a look at the user experience, and how it is evolving, across all the major streaming and OTT platforms. Attendees can see demos of platforms and devices — from smart TVs and streaming boxes to game consoles — and can test OTT services side-by-side.

Those seeking educational content will find three training programmes as extensions of our very popular Post|Production World Conference: the Director of Photography Creative Conference, the Remote Production Conference and the Visual Storytelling Conference. Designed for television broadcasters as well as streamers and other content distributors, the Programming Everywhere Conference will focus on the content commissioning, syndication and acquisition side of the industry.

Finally, it is important to again mention our new Sustainability Awards, presented in partnership with AWS. With sustainability rising as a priority for companies across the industry, we felt it appropriate to shine a spotlight on those that are leading the way on the media and entertainment side.

As always the media tech industry continues to innovate, what new technologies are you finding exhibitors are really focusing on this year?

There is a lot of buzz around the Metaverse, Web3, artificial intelligence and data-driven personalisation, and attendees can expect to see a range of exhibitors showcasing solutions in these areas. New immersive content experiences are imminent, from pure augmented reality/virtual reality or mixed reality variations to the full-blown promise of new digital worlds with users as the central character. On the production and post-production side, virtualisation and remote production tools continue to drive new dynamics, as do advances in VFX technology via game engine technology and exciting tools like “volume” screens.

As generative artificial intelligence technology is improved over the next few years, it has great promise for creating efficiencies across media workflows, and this will be a part of the discussion within our educational program. We’ll also see the rising role of data, not just in enabling broadcasters and other media players to target and contextualize advertising but also in powering more efficient production and post-production workflows.

The ATSC 3.0 Pavilion at NAB Show is a must-see for all television broadcasters, given that NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) is steadily advancing, with more stations, more receivers, more viewers and more opportunities around better picture, sound and interactivity to drive engagement. Exhibitors are also focused on 5G production techniques, particularly around live events, because it borders on revolutionary in enabling broadcasters to source, produce and publish their content when combined with cloud workflows. The latest advances in streaming media technology will continue to be a significant focus. 

What do you hope the industry takes away from NAB Show 2023?

NAB Show is the industry’s showcase, its innovation launching pad, a celebration of the creative spirit and a homecoming for so many. At the 2023 NAB Show, attendees will find a rich array of educational programs and activities, not to mention an exhibit floor with more than 1,000 exhibitors with amazing technologies. The potential for discovery, connection and inspiration is unparalleled, and we’ve done our best to help everyone make the most of it.

Along with new skills and knowledge, business contacts and connections, and creative ideas and solutions, I hope people gain a sense of the progress our industry has made over the past 100 years. After all, the NAB Show centennial is the perfect opportunity to celebrate and honor the generations of great and passionate storytellers, technicians and businesspeople who built our fantastic industry.

This year, more than any other, I hope people come away from the show with a sense of wonder at how much we’ve accomplished over our history — and an even stronger sense of possibility and excitement, as we look toward all the amazing things our future might hold.

NAB Show 2023 takes place April 15-19  in Las Vegas.

ORLANDO—The National Association of Broadcasters issued a statement condemning violence against journalists after a reporter and news photographer for Spectrum News 13 in Orlando were shot yesterday while reporting on a homicide that occurred earlier in the Pine Hills area of the city.

Police identified the assailant as Keith Melvin Moses, 19, who, according to a witness report to the Associated Press, approached the news crew and shot the journalist and photographer and afterwards went to a house nearby and shot a mother and her 9-year old daughter, who died of her injuries. Spectrum News reported that the journalist died and that the  mother and news photographer were in critical condition at a local hospital.

The Spectrum News 13 news vehicle was not clearly identified as such, according to police. A news crew from another local Orlando station WFTV was also reporting from the scene and provided medical assistance to the wounded journalists.

In a news conference, local law enforcement officials said Moses was also a suspect in the earlier shooting that the news crews were covering. 

Spectrum News issued the following statement: 

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and the other lives senselessly taken today. Our thoughts are with our employee’s family, friends and co-workers during this very difficult time. We remain hopeful that our other colleague who was injured makes a full recovery. This is a terrible tragedy for the Orlando community.”

NAB CEO Curtis LeGey said “we are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of life in Orlando, Florida today. Our hearts go out to the families and colleagues of the Spectrum News 13 crew members and all the victims who have been affected by this senseless act of violence. Journalists play a vital role bringing breaking news to the public, and often putting their lives in danger in the process. This is a reminder of the risks that members of the press face in their efforts to inform the public, and we stand with our colleagues in condemning all acts of violence against journalists.” 

WASHINGTON—Sometimes in Washington the best indicator that something big is brewing is when suddenly everyone clams up.  

Such is the case with the long simmering effort to impose retransmission consent regulations on streaming video carriage of local stations. Recent sub rosa negotiations are not very well hidden, since affiliate groups and lobbyists (including the National Association of Broadcasters) have submitted ex parte filings about their Federal Communications Commission meetings on the topic. Both FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel and NAB President Curtis LeGeyt have acknowledged that decisions are overdue on streaming retransmission policies for video via virtual multichannel video programming distributors.

10 p.m. Up for Grabs?
Moreover, the issue is bubbling up as the entire nature of the network/affiliate relationship is undergoing major revisions—from chatter about ceding the 10 pm (ET) programming hour back to affiliates (the network has decided to keep it for now) to the intense appeals from NBC, CBS, Fox and ABC for viewers to tune in directly to their streaming services, such as Peacock, Paramount+ and Hulu, thus bypassing local affiliates entirely. In addition, stations’ adoption of ATSC 3.0 and its IP implications could affect the retransmission requirements. 

The current chatter about vMVPD revenues comes amid forecasts that traditional retrans revenue to affiliates may drop from 50% to 39% of station income in the next few years, according to research firm BIA. Adding to the clout of networks’ (and other) streaming services is their libraries of off-network syndicated content, formerly a mainstay of independent stations (e.g. episodes of popular series such as “Seinfeld,” “The Office,” “NCIS” and “Friends”). Analysts wonder if audiences will tune into broadcast reruns if they can choose what to watch via streaming platforms. 

Yet, NAB, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association,  American Television Alliance (ATVA), the FCC and attorneys for stations and affiliate groups have all ducked TV Tech’s queries about what what’s going on, sometimes after initially agreeing to share updates on their negotiations but later saying that they couldn’t discuss activities because of current, unspecified conditions.  

NAB declined to respond to TV Tech’s questions about its streaming stance, but later that same week the association submitted an ex parte filing at the FCC describing its meeting at which it urged the commission to examine  “current streaming advancements [that] may affect the Commission’s calculus in determining whether virtual MVPDs should be deemed to be MVPDs.”  

At the same time, LeGeyt asked the FCC to classify vMVPDs as carriers that are subject to program-negotiation obligations.  NAB took that message directly to commissioners and their staffs in a series of November meetings. 

Some advocates had hoped that Congress would address the issue via new laws for retransmission fee guarantees, but those dreams were dashed by the mid-term election. A divided House and Senate are considered unlikely to agree on any communications financial issues and will “not pass much legislation,” a veteran media lawyer/lobbyist told TV Tech.

Much of the current effort is focused on the 2014 FCC proposed rulemaking that then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler initiated, which sought to determine if video services that are not facilities-based should be subject to the agency’s rules for  traditional MVPDs, such as cable or telco systems. In an interview with Politico Pro, LeGeyt said the NAB’s board wants the FCC to collect new feedback on the Wheeler proposal given “changes in the marketplace.”

Separately, Rosenworcel told Congress in November that she would welcome the chance to become involved in retransmission consent issues, particularly in disputes that affect viewer’s access to programs during blackouts of broadcast signals on MVPD systems.  She said the FCC would work with Congress, but emphasized that the FCC’s role would be to protect consumers if vMVPD fees or terms are excessive—with no mention of helping affiliates.

Affiliate Rift 
The retransmission situation also puts the spotlight on the growing rift between affiliates and networks. In a presentation to the FCC, four major networks’ affiliate groups pointed out that, “Unlike negotiations with traditional MVPDs where local television affiliates negotiate directly for the carriage of their FCC-licensed signals, the national Big Four broadcast networks have asserted near-total control over carriage negotiations with vMVPDs.” The group emphasized that deals are conducted “without any meaningful input from its non-owned Affiliate stations.”

Affiliates’ dissatisfaction with how networks are treating them is surfacing from multiple sources. There are unconfirmable reports that the networks have negotiated retransmission consent agreements with YouTube TV on behalf of the affiliates, but affiliates contend that their slice of that payment is too small. Other reports indicate that Comcast recently loaded all the NBC affiliates onto its Peacock streaming platform, after which NBC affiliates’ leadership issued a supportive statement. Analysts told TV Tech that lethargic support suggested that Comcast/NBC offered a good-enough deal, but no match to conventional cable retransmission fees.

The network vs. affiliates tension regarding vMVPD deals was especially vivid at the Big Four networks’ affiliate associations session at the FCC. When executives of the groups met virtually with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington and his staff earlier this year, they urged the commission to consider making online video distributors abide by the same retransmission consent rules as traditional MVPDs, according to the subsequent report of their law firm, Brooks Pierce. 

A new retransmission analysis by financial firm Matthew Lochte of Bond & Pecaro concludes that overall retrans fees have reached “mature equilibrium” thanks to cable cord cutting. The analysis, distributed by  the Media Financial Management Association (MFM), points out that especially “for smaller broadcast companies” the affiliation fees could “exceed total retrans revenues” from MVPDs and vMVPDs.”

Parrott Analytics, in its latest, lengthy analysis “The Value of Broadcast Television,”  builds a case for the symbiotic relationship between streaming video and broadcasting – although it focuses entirely on networks.

 Parrott points out that in 3Q22, “a whopping 33.8% of its U.S. audience demand” of streaming content is based on broadcast network series. Viewers easy “access to new recent installments of mainstream network programming is a major selling point, providing consumers with a convenient on-demand option and providing networks with extended exposure,” says Parrot’s study.

“The networks themselves, and their significant domestic reach, can help expand a streamer’s audience demographic while raising additional awareness,” the report continues. “Once users are exploring broadcast titles within a digital ecosystem, they tend to stay there. Linear network shows provide a strong affinity halo effect that keeps audiences on track for related consumption. “

Emily Barr, former president/CEO of Graham Media Group and a vigorous defender of local stations and network/affiliate collaboration, acknowledges the complications because “there are so many players in streaming.” She said she’d like to see a “more cooperative relationship” as vMVPD develops since the network/affiliate relations is based on local stations receiving retransmission revenue.

“If the networks want to keep a relationship with affiliates, they [must create}  a way to let the affiliates partake in the revenue,” Barr says, noting that, “There have been some discussions in that direction on behalf of some of the networks,” but that nothing conclusive has emerged.

Barr concedes that cord-cutting will continue to affect cable/satellite retrans revenue, but she foresees considerable revenue as the process unfolds, pointing out that networks are playing both sides, with investments to nurture some streaming services. “They’re trying to have a little bit of both [traditional retransmission plus direct-to-consumer streaming]” she said. But Barr stops short of predicting how the game will play out. 

Slowing Retrans Fee Growth
Rick Ducey, managing director of BIA, underscores affiliates’ growing reliance on retransmission fees, which “will continue to be a substantial” factor, now accounting for more than 50% of local stations’ revenue. BIA’s forecasts envision that retransmission revenues could go down to 39% by 2026, and that local stations will receive a “decreasing share of it” as networks demand higher reverse compensation fees because of ever-increasing programming rights costs. 

As for the current quiet ballet between broadcasters and digital platform operators, Ducey believes that “networks and affiliates boards have to negotiate what goes on the platform and determine what the split is.” He expects that affiliates will get “some economic benefit from vMVPDs” but notes that some major TV groups are already making such deals, much as they’ve done for their conventional retransmission agreements.  Obviously, no details are being made public yet. 

Ducey acknowledges that the networks have taken the lead in vMVPD negotiations on behalf of affiliates and “are probably not doing the best job for their affiliates.” He points out that local stations see cord cutting as impacting transmission fees, which will lead to “things getting more out of balance in favor of the networks.” Ducey agreed that when he probed into FCC or Capitol Hill involvement in this streaming retransmission issue, he also got “don’t want to talk about that” responses, which he characterizes as “a non-denial denial that’s probably an affirmation of an underlying issue that is brewing. No one said, ‘it is a non-issue.’ Semantics matter.”

Ducey envisions that there will be changes as broadcast affiliates complete deals with local MVPDs. “At some point the cable industry has to say ‘our ability to pay has been in decline, so we have to re-adjust fees,’” he predicts. “Margins are being compressed; looking ahead [there are] different businesses” taking shape. 

Growing Recognition of Unfolding Problems 
NAB’s meetings with top FCC Media Bureau officials and commissioners’ staff emphasized that “significant developments in the streaming marketplace may impact the Commission’s continued consideration of its pending proposal ‘to modernize [its] interpretation of the term … [vMVPD] by including’ … services that make available for purchase, by subscribers or customers, multiple linear streams of video programming, regardless of the technology used to distribute the programming,” according to the follow-up by Rick Kaplan, NAB’s chief legal officer and executive vice president, Legal and Regulatory Affairs.

Kaplan also pointed out that current streaming advancements may “affect the Commission’s calculus in determining whether virtual MVPDs should be deemed to be MVPDs.” And he emphasized that “must address certain critical implications of its proposal, including how to ensure broadcast signals carried by vMVPDs are protected from piracy, material degradation, and distribution beyond a station’s local market.” 

Bolstering broadcasters’ expectations that they can reach deals with vMVPD operators are recent reports from Park Associates analytics firm that emphasize the continuing appeal of conventional video programming. 

“Adults 55 and older disproportionately favor a linear experience while viewers 18-24 prefer watching content from YouTube, social media, and the like,” Parks Research Vice President Jennifer Kent told TV Tech. “Consumers value live content because it is engaging, sometimes interactive, and personal to their interests.” 

She cited a recent 50:50 joint venture between Comcast and Charter Communications (the two largest cable operators in the U.S.), to develop a nationwide streaming platform. Although the competitive strength of such a unified service may affect broadcast network initiatives, Kent says that the arrangement “may help Comcast and Charter pull ahead in subscriber growth and gain an edge in the crowded OTT market.”

Financial Considerations 
Amid this regulatory rigamarole, Wall St. is also monitoring the impact of the vMVPD relationship with local broadcasting.

Laura Martin, senior entertainment and internet analyst at Needham & Company, doesn’t believe streaming is undermining local affiliates, contending that stations “will get paid if they have viewership,” but is not specific about how those payments will be made.

“The affiliate has value,” Martin said, but adding that direct-to-consumer viewing is all about generating specific data, so “local TV will be forced to compete on the local data.”  It has to be “really good data about what kind of content attracts and keeps a viewer. It must pull its weight.”   

The National Association of Broadcasters is planning to ask the FCC to adopt new regulations that would recognize changes in the television marketplace and force streaming services to be regulated more in line with existing rules for broadcasters. 

In a Politico article, NAB President Curtis LeGeyt said that the effort to re-open rules that had been proposed during the Obama administration was discussed during a recent private board meeting. Such changes would be more inline with “changes in the marketplace” LeGeyt told Politico. It would also reflect comments NAB made to the commission earlier this year in an ex parte filing, which, while it dealt mainly with radio ownership issues, also touched upon reforms to existing rules that would include streaming companies. 

"While this submission primarily responds to invalid claims made by those opposing reform of the local radio rule, NAB’s legal and economic analyses also refute arguments against ownership rule reform more generally, including for local TV broadcasters," NAB said at the time.

Top of mind is retrans: broadcasters want the commission to look into expanding broadcasters’ ability to negotiate contracts beyond traditional cable and satellite pay-TV providers to services that carry broadcasters’ local channels, so-called “virtual multichannel video program distributors” (vMVPVDs) like YoutubeTV, Hulu and SlingTV.  

The move doesn’t come without opposition, however from within NAB, where the networks have differed with the association’s decision to pursue updated rules and the local stations, who are pushing to extend retrans rules to apply to streaming platforms. 

LeGeyt acknowledged this reality, telling Politico, “NAB membership is a large tent, and it is not uncommon for there to be differences of views among our companies. Like any member-driven organization, we move forward when a critical mass of our membership is in agreement, and even in those instances we strive for advocacy that maintains unity for the good of the broadcast industry and the tens of millions of Americans who rely on our service every day.”

The American Television Association, a critic of the NAB, especially over retrans battles that often result in broadcast stations pulling their signals, responded to the Politico article, saying the FCC should pay more attention to updating rules and protecting consumers from rising costs. 

“The broadcast industry wants to take the current framework, which is already responsible for thousands of consumer blackouts and massive annual price increases, and expand it to streaming,” stated ATVA spokesperson, Jessica Kendust. “The FCC should focus on modernizing and fixing the broken system, not imposing new costs on streaming customers.”

DETROIT—The session was titled “ATSC 3.0: Television, Automotive and More” June 9 at the Advanced Television System Committee’s NextGen Broadcast Conference, but few could have predicted the “more” would include exchanges between Consumer Technology Association CEO and president Gary Shapiro and NAB CEO and president Curtis LeGeyt that at times were quite pointed and at others downright confrontational.

Moderated by Digital Tech Consulting (DTC) founder and president Myra Moore, the conversation between both association leaders started off, as might be expected for a conference looking at the NextGen TV standard, on topics like the role of local broadcasters, what motivates CE manufacturers to adopt anything new, the 3.0 build out, how the NextGen TV rollout compares to DTV/HDTV rollout and the availability of NextGen TV sets.

The interaction between Shapiro, who was in person at the event, and LeGeyt, who joined by Zoom, took an unexpected turn when Moore asked the association leaders about how the organizations are working together to promote NextGen TV to consumers.

“First of all, I think we're working tremendously well together, across, you know, numerous different aspects of this,” said LeGeyt. After mentioning recently reading an Op-Ed co-written by former NAB CEO and president Gordon Smith and Shapiro on the 10-year anniversary of the DTV transition and remarking on how it underscored the importance of “collaboration and consensus” between the CE and TV broadcast industries to achieve a shared goal, LeGeyt expressed appreciation for the collaborative efforts of the CE industry and CTA members on NextGen TV.

“…[B]eing on the same page, talking about how do we promote this collectively… the consumer value proposition…in the living room, in the phone and in all of these use cases—where your members are effectively going to be… the consumers’ entryway to the benefits, I think the sky’s the limit here,” said LeGeyt. 

Shapiro, however, expressed there’s a limit. “I agree with everything you’ve said till this point, except that it’s a wonderful collaboration, because I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s tough to collaborate with someone when you’re investing a lot of your resources fighting ideas that they’re pushing forth to policymakers…,” said Shapiro.

The CTA head cited NAB efforts to put a tax “on all devices” using FCC-regulated spectrum. “Who wants their Wi-Fi taxed? Who wants all these equipment taxes? That's not something that makes us very happy when you're out there all the time talking about big tech and how horrible technology is, and trying to push that agenda in Washington,” said Shapiro.

Shapiro also objected to the NAB’s support for taxpayer money to pay journalists, a proposal he characterized as going “to the heart of the First Amendment and where government should be.” NAB is “pushing a lot of ideas which have nothing to do with expanding the industry and more to do with fighting other industries that you somehow feel are against you,” he said.

Other items on Shapiro’s list of grievances included “fighting the music industry” for free performance rights, attacks on technology innovation, including a proposal to prevent a company with more than $100 million from acquiring another company. “Why is it that this past week, you've had `The Washington Post,' far left liberal, and `The Wall Street Journal,' far-right conservative, agreeing that these proposals are absolutely wrong for business?” he asked.

“Well, Gary, listen,” said LeGeyt. “I couldn’t disagree more. First off, as it relates to any advocacy we're doing around technology, it relates to the largest tech companies—Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon. [L]et's be very honest, [they] are impeding competition and pushing out many of your members who can't compete with them.”

The NAB chief noted that the market dominance of those big tech companies puts them in an information gatekeeper role and that their “market power has finally found a way into breaking down the business model for locally focused journalism. That’s not a broadcast-specific issue.” 

“[W]e’re not focused on… doing anything to technology and innovation in this country; where we are focused is on for companies that have absolutely outsized market power,” said LeGeyt, who suggested the two meet in Washington to discuss “how we [NAB] can finetune our messaging around that to make that clear.”

However, “there is no future of this business model [broadcasting] in which four companies…have an outsized impact on our ability to reach our audiences as those audiences migrate to digital and are turning around and using our own content against us in a local ad marketplace that they dominate as a result of that monopoly power,” said LeGeyt.

Moore tried to pull the conversation back to 3.0, but Shapiro continued. “This is not just an attack on four big companies,” he said. This is an attack on the tech industry saying you don't have a right to develop a platform and make it successful.”

LeGeyt called Shapiro’s description of NAB’s advocacy and proposals a complete mischaracterization of “our anti-trust agenda as it relates to… these broader anti-trust initiatives.”

“Look, there are a lot of proposals out there right now. NAB supports the overarching effort to rein in these tech companies,” he said.

Addressing collaboration between NAB and CTA on NextGen TV promotion, LeGeyt said he was “going to push back.”

“As the head of the CTA trade association, you may not feel like the partnership has been good,” said LeGeyt. “But I can tell you from our members’ perspective, we are grateful for the partnership that we’ve had with your industry as it relates to receiver standards [and] as it relates to joint promotion in the markets where the deployment has happened. And as it relates to broadcast education, consumer education… in this early stage—we are grateful for the work to date, and I need your members to know that."

In reply, Shapiro noted that ATSC is a “wonderful mechanism composed of super-competent people” who came together and agreed on a goal for NextGen TV. “I think that’s great, but when you asked about the partnership between the industries and organizations and how this would be promoted, it’s tough to promote it when someone has a knife, and they keep trying to stab you.”

With its long hiatus in the rearview mirror, the NAB Show returned in April to Las Vegas, conveying an upbeat feel and a sense that things are returning to normal—or, at least a new normal where COVID is just an inconvenient part of life. (One need look no further than the COVID testing stations at the LVCC and the proof-of-vaccination/negative-COVID-test admittance policy for evidence of that.)

As is tradition, the president and CEO of NAB and chairperson of the FCC held a fireside chat at the start of the show—the first time for both Curtis LeGeyt, who took charge of the association in January, and Jessica Rosenworcel, whom the Senate confirmed as chairperson in December. 

Regarding ATSC 3.0, Rosenworcel made four important points broadcasters would be wise to consider: 

• The FCC chairperson recognizes the need for special temporary authorities to address 3.0 “bumps in the road” and commended Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer for “sitting down with any broadcaster who comes in and says, ‘You know, I’ve got a problem with my 3.0 signal in the way I need to work in my marketplace’” and making sure broadcasters have the “space to experiment and innovate.”
  
• Rosenworcel acknowledges that rule changes may be necessary to advance 3.0 and expressed a willingness to work with broadcasters on finding solutions. Pointing to those who have sought rule changes to address 3.0 and multicasting as an example, she told broadcasters to “come to us, tell us what you’re seeing. Tell us what’s working and where there might be a hurdle in our rules that we should figure out how to fix.”
  
• The chairperson views current period with 3.0 as an “experimental” phase. Referring to the FCC’s “framework” for NextGen TV in which 1.0 continues and broadcasters voluntarily work together to put 3.0 on air in local markets, she said, “…[W]hat that does is it gives broadcasters the opportunity to experiment with this technology, develop use cases, try to figure out what services work at scale.”
  
• Rosenworcel also wishes to deal with the inherent incompatibility of 3.0 and 1.0. “You know, the standard is still not backwards-compatible with existing receivers and televisions, and that’s going to be something we need to address.”

From where I sit, these are the important takeaways from the fireside chat. Rosenworcel gets high marks for expressing the agency’s desire to work with broadcasters on STAs and rule changes needed to advance NextGen TV deployment. 

The broadcast industry needs to do a better job of conveying where it is with the 3.0 rollout. In my mind—and likely the minds of the consumer electronics manufacturers onboard the NextGen TV bandwagon with 100 or more 3.0 models, the industry is transitioning, or has transitioned, from the “experimental” phase to deployment. The word “experiment” makes it seem like packing it in is a possibility.

Lastly, is backwards compatibility really on the table? I thought that was settled. If I were a pessimist, I might view that comment as a red flag that could be used as an excuse to extend the 1.0 sunset timeframe indefinitely or even as a reason to end the “experiment.” If I were an optimist, I could see it as a hint that someone in Washington is toying with the idea of a coupon program for 3.0-to-1.0 set-top boxes for all of those existing DTV households. 

But I’m a realist, hoping for the latter, concerned about the former and, at the end of the day, cautiously thinking the chairperson may have misspoken or been jetlagged. Time will tell. 

WASHINGTON—Earlier this year, Gordon Smith, who has led the National Association of Broadcasters as its CEO for more than a decade, announced his retirement.  Curtis LeGeyt, NAB’s current chief operating officer, has been appointed as the next president and CEO of the organization.

LeGeyt—who is set to take over Jan. 1—has been with NAB for nearly a decade, previously serving five years as NAB’s executive vice president, Government Relations, before taking on his current role as COO.

TV Tech recently talked with LeGeyt on his new role and the challenges facing NAB and broadcasters in a rapidly changing media landscape.

TV Tech: Congratulations on your new job, Curtis. You come to NAB at a challenging time for the broadcast industry. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing NAB right now?

Curtis LeGeyt: This is a time of just tremendous disruption, both in the media landscape, and in Washington D.C. Our members both on the television and radio side are grappling with the way that the large tech companies have upended their relationship with their viewers. So as an advocacy organization, we want to ensure that in the future, local television broadcasters have the ability to reach their viewers, to invest in locally focused content and  investigative journalism. 

That business model is existential right now, and the tech platforms are altering every element of both that relationship with our audiences, and our relationship with our advertisers so that is a major, major challenge for the industry. At the same time, Washington D.C. is a town that is swept up in political division, and we need to ensure that as an industry that we continue to remind policymakers that whether Republican or Democrat, we all register local, we’re serving constituents regardless of political affiliation, and we need to cut through that partisanship, because there are members on both sides of the aisle that at the end of the day want to ensure a thriving broadcast industry. So that’s really the challenge on both fronts.

TVT: How has the pandemic affected broadcasting in general, NAB and the NAB Show and related industry events?

CL: It is no surprise that our industry has been challenged by COVID, both in a very practical and day-to-day way. There’s never been more pressure on local stations across the country to serve their communities with very relevant, hyper-focused information on what are the rules of the road for local businesses, what’s going on with school closures, how can I go and get a COVID test, where can I be vaccinated, how safe are these vaccines, etc.

So the role of local broadcasting has never been more important, but at the same time when you are an industry that relies on local businesses for advertising revenues, there are some inherent challenges there. 

But I think the broadcast industry is going to come out the other side of this even stronger because we really used the last 18 months to reaffirm our brand. But that pressure on the financials, especially on the advertising side puts a real impetus on the need for NAB to deliver real immediate policy outcomes. And so the fact that we were able to secure Covid relief last year for every local broadcast station in the country that wanted to take Congress up on it, to help ensure that those stations were able to keep their local employees on payroll, was a very, very significant lifeline for the industry. 

The fact that we’ve been able to keep regulatory fees at bay—just recently, the FCC rolled back a previous proposal to increase fees on the broadcast industry this year—those are the types of things we’re very focused on. 

We’re always going to have those big picture battles around retransmission consent, and around spectrum, for example, but what COVID has done is it has really heightened our focus on delivering some short-term wins for the industry when we need it. 

Regarding the NAB Show, we worked very hard to try to deliver an event that exhibitors, attendees and our industry would be proud of. Unfortunately, there were too many factors outside of our control that prevented us from hosting the type of event that our community has come to expect. We are incredibly disappointed about having to cancel the show, but it is ultimately the right call, considering health and safety concerns and our desire to meet the expectations of our exhibitors and attendees.

I am grateful to our partners and all who poured their hearts into trying to put together an in-person convention in the face of extraordinary challenges. We will continue to connect with the NAB Show community through NAB Amplify and we are channeling our focus towards delivering a great 2022 NAB Show in April in Las Vegas that gets our industry back to doing business face-to-face.   

TVT: It’s not hyperbole to predict that the future of television as we know it is OTT. How do local broadcasters stay relevant in this changing landscape, particularly since television now is basically a streaming platform?

CL: Well, no doubt we need to be accessible wherever and however viewers want to access our content and so I think the innovations that you’re seeing across the industry, ranging from streaming platforms to the investment in ATSC 3.0 are designed to ensure that we’re not going to miss a beat when it comes to consumers

I think our competitive advantage in the media landscape is our ‘hyperlocal’ focus and the local station’s ability to ensure that viewers remain connected to the communities in which they live. The experience of COVID, over the last 18 months, I think underscores the relevance and reliance that viewers have on our stations. 

TVT: Are you satisfied with the rollout of ATSC 3.0 so far?

CL: We’re really encouraged that so many stations are up and running with their deployments, especially in light of the challenges that COVID has brought to bear over the course of the last year and a half. It has slowed the pace of transition somewhat, but we will still get NextGen TV deployed in 60 television markets, reaching roughly three quarters of the country over the course of the next few months. 

Moreover, we’re encouraged by the fact that the industry has really coalesced around what has been a tremendous undertaking, where you’ve got so many independent businesses making their own determination about where they want to invest their innovation dollars. So getting everybody rowing in the same direction was a tremendous challenge and there’s excitement around the consumer benefits, as well as, frankly, the experience that we can provide for our advertising business partners, so we’re very encouraged.

TVT: What steps is NAB taking to help increase diversity ownership and provide more diverse opinions to their local communities?

CL: This is an absolute priority for the NAB and for the industry as a whole because to remain dominant players in the media landscape, our local stations need to reflect the communities that they serve. And we are actively pushing that forward in really three different ways.

The first is as it relates to our advocacy. We are working like heck right now to try to get traction around the diversity tax certificate program. This is a program that existed up until the mid 1990s at the FCC that incensed the sale of broadcast assets to diverse ownership groups, and we are actively working on Capitol Hill as these packages are coming together around infrastructure around spending, to ensure that this tax certificate program is part of those conversations, as it relates to the industry.

Our leadership foundation runs a broadcast leadership training program that is anchored in ensuring that that there is greater diversity in the leadership ranks of our industry, and making sure that a diverse set of new talent within the industry is equipped with not only the substantive knowledge but the relationships that they need to do to advance and be the next leaders for the industry. And then finally last year the NAB appointed a new Chief Diversity Officer, Michelle Duke who really spearheads our board's emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion, making sure that as we are developing our broad agenda across policy elements, that there's a diverse perspective in the room, both from a board perspective and from a leadership perspective at our organizations. All of these things are top of mind and ensuring that the industry's got the tools that it needs to best represent the communities they serve.

TVT: With the networks heavily involved with launching their own streaming services that give them a more direct path to getting their programming to viewers, how do you think that impacts the relationships between the networks and affiliates?  

CL: I think there remains an extremely strong mutual respect between the broadcast networks, and the broadcast affiliates. They are in slightly different businesses, for a lot of the reasons that you just articulated, but there’s also a recognition that there is a mutual need here and that the networks’ local affiliates remain an indispensable resource and business partner in reaching and maximizing their ability to touch viewers across the country. One thing that we really emphasize at the NAB is the need for unity between the network’s and the affiliates, which Gordon [Smith] deserves a lot of credit for. 

I think as it relates to our message in Washington, and frankly our message to consumers around the value of broadcast, is that the networks and the affiliates are absolutely in lockstep, which as you know, has not always been the case at NAB. 

WASHINGTON—Gordon Smith has announced he will be stepping down from his position as president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters at the end of the year and transition to an advisory and advocacy role. Curtis LeGeyt, who is the NAB’s chief operating officer, has been appointed as the next president and CEO of the organization.

“It has been my great honor to give the lion’s roar for broadcasters—those who run into the storm, those who stand firm in chaos to hear the voice of the people, those who hold to account the powerful—and to stand with those of the fourth estate who have the hearts of public servants,” Smith said in a video message.

Smith, who previously served two terms as a U.S. Senator from Oregon and as a senior advisor for Covington & Burling LLP, joined NAB as its president and CEO in 2009. Smith has been a strong advocate for broadcasters, especially over the last year as many dealt with issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the attacks at the U.S. Capitol.

In August 2020, Smith suffered a mild stroke.

“Gordon is the ultimate statesman, bringing people together from both sides of the aisle to discuss ideas, find common ground and lead NAB to success on countless fronts,” said Jordan Wertlieb, NAB Joint Board of Directors Chairman and president of Hearst Television. “On behalf of the leadership of NAB, we extend our sincere gratitude for more than a decade of service to the broadcast industry. We look forward to continuing to work with Gordon and benefitting from his guidance for years to come.”

Smith worked with the NAB Board on his succession plan that will see him exit as the organization’s lead on Dec. 31 and move to an advisory role, which he plans to hold until Dec. 31, 2024. Part of his work as an advisor will be to continue lobbying for broadcasters.

LeGeyt is set to take over as the new president and CEO of NAB as of Jan. 1, 2022. LeGeyt has been with NAB for nearly a decade, during which time he has worked on the permanent reauthorization of the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR), the inclusion of $1 billion in RAY BAUM’s Act to reimburse stations impacted by the spectrum auction repack and the passage of the Music Modernization Act.

LeGeyt previously served five years as NAB’s executive vice president, Government Relations, before taking on his current role as COO. Before joining NAB he was senior counsel to then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)

“I am honored and humbled to be named the next leader of this great organization,” said LeGeyt. “To represent the broadcast industry and the local stations that bind our communities together in a moment of such tremendous change across the media landscape is a privilege. Our stations’ role in communities across this country have never been more important, and I look forward to working every day to ensure their ability to grow and thrive.”

WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters will have a new chief operating officer come Feb. 1.

Chris Ornelas, who has been with NAB for a decade, will depart to join Beasley Media Group, where he’ll oversee legal matters for the media company as its general counsel.

He will be replaced by Curtis LeGeyt, NAB's executive vice president of government relations.

Ornelas joined NAB in 2010 as executive vice president and chief strategy officer and was promoted to COO the next year. Previously, he had been the chief counsel on communications and technology for then-Senator Gordon Smith, now NAB’s president/CEO.

LeGeyt has been with NAB since 2011 as senior vice president and legislative counsel, and then senior vice president, public policy, before being promoted to his current role in 2015. He also is a former senior counsel to then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy.

In the announcement, Smith saluted both men and noted LeGeyt for his “superb management skills, the victories that NAB Government Relations has delivered on Capitol Hill and his dedication to the mission of NAB and local broadcasting.

Also, NAB has promoted three senior VPs—April Carty-Sipp, Shawn Donilon and Trish Johnson—to executive vice president.

April Carty-Sipp was promoted to EVP of Industry Affairs, succeeding Steve Newberry, who had announced earlier that he will be leaving to become CEO at technology company Quu.

Shawn Donilon was promoted to EVP of Government Relations, replacing LeGeyt.

Trish Johnson becomes EVP of Finance/Chief Financial Officer.

Curtis LeGeyt

WASHINGTON – Gordon Smith, NAB president and CEO, announced that Curtis LeGeyt, NAB senior vice president of public policy, has been promoted to the role of EVP of government relations after Kelly Cole announced she would be resigning from the position last week. LeGeyt will oversee all advocacy efforts of the department.

LeGeyt joined NAB in 2011 and last year became NAB’s principal liaison to the White House and executive agencies and departments. He previously served as a senior counsel to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (VT), focusing on intellectual property, antitrust and First Amendment issues.

Cole’s last day will be Aug. 14.