“We’ve been here before” stands out among the profound rhetoric that poured into the FCC as it revived its rulemaking exploration of NextGen TV. Those words, from a filing by cable-TV industry groups, captured the frustrating dilemma as regulators try to figure out what to do about the retransmission of ATSC 3.0 broadcast TV signals via cable systems and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs).

More than 1,600 comments (including formal submissions, replies to other parties and ex parte letters) have deluged the Federal Communications Commission since October, when it issued its docket on “Authorizing Permissive Use of the ‘Next Generation’ Broadcast Television Standard,” a spokesperson told TV Tech. The arguments came from “broadcasters, MVPDs, equipment manufacturers and retailer groups, consumer groups/advocates, accessibility groups, policy groups, technology/software providers, content producers, other interested parties and individual consumers,” the spokesperson said.

Few Innovative Ideas
This vast array of opinions refrains the familiar arguments of broadcasters vs. cable operators—with substantial input from equipment and software and content suppliers allied with one side or the other. As is increasingly common in such proceedings, there is also an extensive cadre of public-interest organizations and a dollop of Silicon Valley and wireless communications ventures with an appetite for spectrum.

Relatively few innovative ideas seemed to emerge from the reams of formal filings or in conversations with TV Tech, although analysts offered perspectives on what’s ahead.

The FCC hasn’t set a deadline to resolve the ATSC 3.0 retransmission issue. The agency’s only response to a query about a possible timetable: “This is an active proceeding.”

Independent analysts do not expect a quick resolution. As one inside observer said, “The ball is in FCC Chairman [Brendan] Carr’s court.” Another FCC watcher opined that NextGen TV is not a high priority, despite the agency’s public statements.

To complicate the deliberations, the NextGen TV migration also includes uncertainty about if, when or how to turn off the current ATSC 1.0 signals, which do have must-carry requirements. A slew of other factors, such as the absence of a tuner subsidy (as was available in the digital transition nearly two decades ago), add to the complexity—and are familiar themes in the current examination.

When it opened its latest rulemaking, the FCC said it was seeking “to support and accelerate the nation’s ongoing transition to NextGen TV (also known as ATSC 3.0),” which it claims “represents the future of broadcasting and promises to modernize the nation’s free and local over-the-air television service.”

NAB, ATSC Confront Multiple Challenges
In its filing, the National Association of Broadcasters contends the dissent about must-carry and other familiar issues repeats a “problem [that] is circular.” Stations won’t transmit until carriage is assured and receivers are available, and hardware makers won’t make equipment until rules are in place for distributing the enhanced content, NAB asserted.

Moreover, there is the question about the migration from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0.

“Broadcasters cannot offer the full benefits of Next Gen TV service until they can stop simulcasting in ATSC 1.0,” according to NAB’s filing—but there is widespread concern about the problems that would surface if simulcasting ended without viewers able to receive ATSC 3.0 signals.

NAB urged the FCC to adopt a “date-certain ATSC 1.0 sunset” and to “ensure continued MVPD carriage of stations’ primary ATSC 3.0 signals and associated program-related features.”

In its initial comments to the FCC, NAB insisted “extending must-carry to ATSC 3.0 is essential to an efficient and timely transition.” Broadcasters contend stations should be allowed “to assert mandatory carriage rights for their ATSC 3.0 signals.”

“Broadcasters are not looking to expand must-carry obligations but preserve the same framework that applies today as broadcast technology evolves,” NAB said. “As stations transition to ATSC 3.0, must-carry should continue to attach to a station’s primary programming stream regardless of transmission standard…Technical standards are already in place to support MVPD carriage of ATSC 3.0 signals,” pointing to an ATSC Recommended Practice on Delivery of ATSC 3.0 Services for Redistribution.

Alison Martin, NAB’s vice president of innovation and strategy, said ATSC 3.0 broadcast streams contain content-related data that is essential for viewers and should be subject to must-carry rules. Weather reports, emergency evacuation routes, accessibility information and similar local data must be part of the retransmission package, she said, alluding to the support broadcasters have received from social service agencies.

Martin acknowledged that some of the data ventures that broadcasters envision for ATSC 3.0 fit into what the FCC’s Carr calls “the broadcast internet,” which NAB contends is totally separate from the must-carry issues involved with traditional video programming. She said licensees see services such as BitPath, the wireless platform built on ATSC 3.0 architecture developed by Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group, as an extension of broadcasters’ capacity for data delivery.

“They look at it as a supplement for private wireless networks, so must-carry is not necessary,” she said.

That said, cable retransmission is “the most important thing” to assure broadcasters “are able to innovate” and develop enhancements such as “more immersive audio” and sports enhancements, according to Martin.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee added its endorsement to NAB’s arguments.

Although the group insists that its focus is strictly on technical issues, “any regulatory framework must preserve local broadcasters’ ability to innovate, serve their communities, and fully use ATSC 3.0’s capabilities,” ATSC Vice President of Standards Development Luiz Fausto emphasized.

“The absence of clear rules governing the treatment of ATSC 3.0 services in retransmission scenarios could create uncertainty,” Fausto said. “Conversely, a framework that recognizes the technical realities of ATSC 3.0, including its IP-based architecture and support for new services, can help broadcasters and distribution partners plan investments with greater confidence.”

He stressed: “Cable retransmission is part of a larger transition. ATSC 3.0’s value lies in enabling local broadcasters to use a flexible, scalable, IP-based platform to reach viewers and communities in new ways.”

Opposition From Cable, CE Makers
The “been here before” sneer came from NCTA–The Internet & Television Association on behalf of a cadre of cable TV and broadband providers and their collaborators.

In its filing, the group took aim at NAB’s claim that the cable industry opposes broadcasters’ use of new technologies. “We simply believe that broadcasters’ transition to a new standard should not come at the expense of MVPDs, equipment manufacturers, and consumers, with no guarantee of meaningful benefits,” NCTA said.

“Requiring cable operators to carry ATSC 3.0 signals—despite the substantial costs involved and the uncertain consumer value—would further intensify the serious constitutional concerns associated with the must-carry regime,” NCTA Senior Vice President of Strategic Communications Brian Dietz told TV Tech. “Allowing broadcasters to discontinue ATSC 1.0 transmissions at this stage of the current market-based transition would impose real costs on consumers without any assurance of meaningful benefits.”

The Consumer Technology Association and its equipment-making allies take a similar stance. CTA contends the marketplace is working and a 3.0 tuner mandate is unnecessary. It would be “misguided” to impose a mandate “before broadcasters have adopted and promoted NextGen TV on a nationwide basis, and thus before there is adequate indication of consumer interest or demand,” the group argued.

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s sole Democrat, said the new rules would trigger “additional thorny questions” over matters such as “encryption technologies [i.e.] digital rights management.”

She voiced concerns about whether audiences “will be able to continue to enjoy free, over-the-air television as they do today.”

“Technology should not be a bottleneck to innovation,” Gomez said, noting that the “significant costs of the transition” will extend to consumers who must pay for new “equipment to…receive the new signal over the air or potentially pay higher prices for new televisions.”

Does Wall Street Care?
Blair Levin, a former FCC chief of staff and longtime telecom policy expert, identified several barriers to the must-carry requirements for NextGen TV.

“The value to consumers is completely different” from the original DTV transition nearly two decades ago, Levin said. “The streaming networks, which didn’t exist then, are a much bigger factor than alternative content at the time of the earlier transition.

“There will be a point when the MVPDs say ‘It’s over,’” Levin predicted, suggesting that the necessity to retransmit broadcast content may become irrelevant.

Levin, now a policy and regulation adviser at New Street Research, headed the team that wrote the U.S. National Broadband Plan (2009-2010) and was deeply involved in the 1996 Telecommunications Act while at the FCC.

Several barriers will impede the must-carry efforts, Levin told TV Tech, especially the lack of a tuner mandate and a specified turn-off date for the current ATSC 1.0 signals. The transition also lacks momentum because there is no pressure from Congress or the White House, he noted.

Would Wall Street care about such a break with historical models?

“Not really,” Levin said, noting that investors now care more about actions “that affect wireless carriers and Silicon Valley,” citing increasing efforts to open up different spectrum bands to auction for nonbroadcast purposes.

From his Washington perspective, Levin noted, “NAB has been unable to elevate this on Carr’s agenda.” He acknowledged that broadcasters have traditionally been big defenders of the First Amendment, but said NextGen TV does not fit into that category.

Focus on Other Opportunities
Rick Ducey, managing director at BIA Advisory Services, expressed optimism about TV stations finding a role in the emerging environment.

“I think broadcasters would still offer enhanced services over-the-air even if MVPDs wouldn’t provide the service enhancements,” Ducey said. “That might both hasten video subscriber drops from MVPDs and drive more OTA viewing.

“Broadcasters are leveraging ATSC 3.0 to create an enhanced consumer OTA experience, and [they] would love to see that experience also offered via MVPD retransmission of must-carry if necessary.”

As for the contentious stances of the major camps in this debate, “Each group has reasons for their positions,” Ducey explained, citing the “new expenses (and new competition) for MVPDs” when NextGen TV services are launched.

Equipment makers are wary of new expenses for an unproven market and don’t like the government telling them what their bill of materials should be, he acknowledged.

Ducey also pointed to concerns raised by the role of “tax-and-waste” groups such as Americans for Tax Reform, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Citizens Against Government Waste and American Action Forum as new advocates of the FCC’s effort to create industrial policy.

Wall Street is paying attention to the NextGen TV situation, Ducey said.

“They’ve been listening to ATSC 3.0 plans, forecasts, expectations, and market signals for years,” he said, noting that investors are “waiting to see what happens as we get closer.”

Non-media ventures for data delivery provide “very promising signals that there may yet be an emerging and scalable market for broadcasters,” Ducey said, citing ventures such as EdgeBeam Wireless. That joint venture, involving E.W. Scripps, Gray Media, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair, plans to use ATSC 3.0 technology for multipoint data delivery.

Meanwhile, the must-carry diatribes continue with no decision date in sight.

NEW YORK—At a time when major changes in the media landscape have transformed multiplatform advertising, a larger group of MVPDs have come together to offer some unified guidance on Multiscreen TV Advertising Terminology.

The effort is important because commonly accepted definitions of key terms could simplify the process of buying and selling ads by providing some clarity to the complexities of TV advertising.

The agreement on terms involved Comcast Advertising, Cox, DirecTV Advertising, Dish Media, Optimum Media, Spectrum Reach, Verizon Fios as well as Ampersand and the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB). They said the the goal of the recommendation is to align the media industry around the various delivery types of TV advertising in all its forms, focusing on the terms “multiscreen TV,” “streaming,” and “traditional TV.”

New research from Advertiser Perceptions highlighted the importance of the effort by finding that only 20% of advertisers say terms are consistently used by their partners, and there is little consensus around the advertising vocabulary being used today.*

“As TV proliferates across screens, everyone agrees that we need to simplify the buying and selling experience,” said Jason Wiese, executive vice president. strategic insights and measurement, VAB. “While some areas of complexity are more difficult to resolve than others, one relatively easy fix is to make sure everyone is speaking the same language. By partnering together across companies to define how we’re talking about multiscreen TV, we can clear up inconsistencies and confusion and bring greater clarity to our increasingly complex industry.”

The recommended terminology is based on research with Advertiser Perceptions, commonalities across current language being used, and coordination with the VAB. The new lexicon focuses on the various delivery types of TV advertising in all its forms. According to the guidance:

• When referring to video content delivered via an internet connection, use the term streaming.
• When referring to content delivered via wired cable, telco, satellite or over-the-air distribution (versus internet), use the term traditional TV. (Note: As MVPDs transition to IP-based infrastructures, some or all of the ads within a viewer's "traditional TV" experience may be dynamically delivered.)
• When referring to multiple TV/streaming endpoints, use the term multiscreen TV.

The companies involved in the effort noted that terms like “connected TV” may still be used when discussing a device, while “premium video” may still be used when referring to content that is delivered transparently in a trusted brand-safe environment, and seen by real people in a high-quality viewing experience (as defined previously by the VAB and Comcast Advertising.)

The guidance also notes that the commonly used term “linear TV” is not the same as “traditional TV;” this is because linear is a viewing style that can be applied to both traditional and streaming (in the case of FAST, which is watched on a linear, pre-determined schedule).

“The release of this lexicon is a unique opportunity for MVPDs to align at the most basic level—the words we use to talk about our advertising offerings,” said James Rooke, president, Comcast Advertising. “In many ways, MVPDs sit in the center of today’s multiscreen advertising opportunities, and the onus is on us to lead by example. We hope others will adopt the terms so we can all speak the same language and simplify on behalf of the industry.”

Aligning on language is particularly important to MVPDs as they are a key link in the changing TV ecosystem and often serve as industry advocates for new TV products, including addressable advertising. Ampersand, Comcast Advertising, Cox, DirecTV Advertising, DISH Media, Optimum Media, Spectrum Reach, Verizon Fios and the VAB are now officially rolling out the new language. More information can be found here.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—A new survey indicates that cable networks and broadcasters are losing the battle for being top of mind with viewers as the default destination for viewing TV, with nearly half of all viewers (46%) saying that their first stop when they start watching TV is with an app from one of the top five SVOD streaming services.

Hub Entertainment Research's latest "Decoding the Default" study found that for the first time in five years of tracking, the combined "Big 5" SVODs (Netflix, Prime Video Disney+, Hulu, and Max) are more likely to be the "first stop" for 46% of viewers versus 38% starting with live TV via cable, vMVPD or antenna.

This is a monumental shift in viewing habits that has worrying implications for traditional TV. In 2018 only 30% started viewing with one of the top five SVOD services versus 62% for live TV. In a landscape of endless viewing choices, the services that viewers turn to first are the ones that consumers engage with most and are least likely to cancel, the researchers said.

The survey also found that Netflix is the top SVOD default, on par with cable TV as a "first stop" to watch. Around one quarter of viewers (26%) say that Netflix is the first place they turn to when they want to watch something, on par with the 26% of viewers who say traditional cable (excluding vMVPD and antenna) is their default source.

The research also found that different kinds of content play a key role in anchoring viewers to SVODs, live TV and FAST services.

About 42% of viewers who default to a major SVOD say that "favorite shows" connect them to that service. In contrast, live programming (sports, news) continues to make traditional cable a default source, while those who default to a free ad-supported (FAST) service say that "variety" is the big draw.

While sports rights are migrating to streamers, the current hold-up of Venu sports and other challenges in finding sports content online will continue to challenge viewers juggling both traditional cable and online options.

In another worrying finding for pay TV, broadcasters and linear TV the researchers reported that loyalty to SVODs is notably stronger compared to traditional MVPD sources. Default usage helps stickiness, but only so much: when viewers are asked to choose a service to drop, live TV from MVPD does not hold up as well as streaming services. Even among devoted cable viewers who say it is their "first choice" for viewing, they are less loyal to that service (24% say they will drop), compared to SVOD "default" users (3%-13%).

"The first stop people turn to watch will always be the one that has the highest loyalty, and favorite shows can deepen those loyalties across streamers," said Jason Platt Zolov, Senior Consultant for Hub. “While football and the election may help keep cable TV viewers watching this fall, we can expect a quicker abandonment of cable as live sports becomes more easily available online."

These findings are from Hub’s 2024 “Decoding the Default” report, based on a survey conducted among 1,600 US consumers with broadband, age 16-74, who watch at least 1 hour of TV per week. Interviews were conducted in August 2024 and explored consumers’ default options for viewing sources and how those have changed over time. A free excerpt of the findings is available on Hub’s website. This report is part of the “Hub Reports” syndicated report series.

DENVER—Imagine Communications has unveiled new features and improvements to xG Linear, its ad management platform for MVPDs in North America. 

The new xG PlacerPlus features are designed to help the many media organizations that rely on xG Linear to reduce ad placement times by up to 90 percent and utilize inventory more effectively to drive profitability. The enhanced placer is available immediately as part of xG Linear version 2.6, the company reported. 

xG Linear is an enterprise-level ad management solution that empowers MPVD operations with proven ad placement tools, copy management, schedule optimization, and real-time visibility​. Deployable as an on-premises or cloud-hosted platform, xG Linear easily integrates leading ad tech partners through open APIs and scales seamlessly to 10,000 headends to match the volume and complexity of any growing sales operation, Imagine explained. 

The new xG PlacerPlus feature not only reduces ad placement time, but also helps operators determine how to make the most money with that placement. For example, if a new high-value order comes in, the enhanced placer can automatically bump lower-cost ads into other spots, ensuring that high-value ads are placed into higher value inventory, the company said. 

"Media companies around the world have long relied on Imagine ad tech products to monetize their businesses, and they trust us to continually invest in innovation that will help them move their businesses forward,” said Rob Malcolm, general manager, ad tech, at Imagine Communications. “The latest advances in our well-established xG Linear platform underscore Imagine’s commitment to continuously make improvements that will help our customers work smarter and maximize revenue today — and successfully navigate a converged linear/digital future to achieve sustainable, profitable growth."

Imagine reported that  some of the key features and benefits of xG PlacerPlus include:

• Increase Revenue. The new xG PlacerPlus enables media companies to increase revenue by more effectively utilizing inventory and improving distribution of ad units. Advanced features include automated vertical and horizontal spot movement, improved orbit placement logic, and the option to use cost-per-second in place of rate when ranking ad units.
• Improve Workflow Efficiency. With xG PlacerPlus, MVPDs can boost workflow efficiency with automation that dramatically reduces the need to make manual schedule viewer changes. Operations teams can save multiple hours per week, streamlining their day. Color-coded ad unit icons in the schedule viewer further enhance efficiency, assisting operations teams in quickly identifying applicable ad unit inventory. 
• Prepare for Convergence. Ad Unit Classification capabilities enable user-defined tracking of nonlinear ad units at the order line level, enabling media organizations to seamlessly transition to converged workflows, effectively track impression-based ad units and efficiently manage ad campaigns across all TV channels, including linear, CTV, and FAST.​

For more information about Imagine Communications’ ad tech portfolio, visit https://imaginecommunications.com/monetize-tv/

ATLANTA—With broadcasters and MVPDs facing increased regulatory scrutiny over contentious retransmission consent negotiations that have resulted in high profile blackouts of broadcast signals on pay TV operators, Gray Television has announced that it has successfully completed renewals of retransmission consent agreements representing more than 70 percent of its total subscriber footprint among cable, satellite, and telco multichannel video programming distributors.  

The renewals have occurred in its current three-year retransmission renewal cycle that began with the successful renewal of agreements with three of the largest traditional MVPDs in the first quarter of 2023.

“Consistent with Gray’s history of retransmission renewal negotiations since the early 1990s, these negotiations, while often difficult and always complex, were all conducted without any disruption to consumers,” said Gray’s senior vice president Rob Folliard. “We sincerely appreciate the cooperative, constructive efforts of our MVPD partners in this renewal cycle.”

Gray’s executive vice president, Kevin Latek, added, “as a testament to the value of the live, local news and sports content that Gray’s stations provide, we have reached this retrans renewal milestone on rates and other terms that met our budgets and that will allow our stations to continue making considerable investments to expand local news and sports for the benefit of the local communities where our employees and these MVPDs’ employees live and work.”

Based on the successful negotiations with traditional MVPDs to date, Gray currently anticipates that it will complete its current renewal cycle by reaching new deals with a small number of cable operators serving less than thirty percent of our remaining traditional MVPD subscriber base, primarily during the second half of this year. Thereafter, Gray’s next renewal cycle will begin in the first quarter of 2026.

Gray Television, Inc. is a multimedia company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Gray is the nation’s largest owner of top-rated local television stations and digital assets in the United States. Its television stations serve 114 television markets that collectively reach approximately 36 percent of US television households. This portfolio includes 79 markets with the top-rated television station and 102 markets with the first and/or second highest rated television station.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC has adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) on blackout reporting requirements and is asking for public comment on new rules that would require blackouts to be reported to the FCC. 

The FCC action comes at a time when declines in pay TV subscribers and the increasingly perilous economics of pay TV video services have produced a wave of blackouts following failed retransmission consent agreements between local stations and MVPDs. 

Currently MVPDs and broadcasters are not required to report these blackouts to the Commission, which the FCC said makes it difficult to the agency to address the issues. 

The move would amend the Commission’s rules to require notification to the Commission when a blackout of a broadcast television station, or stations, occurs on a video programming service offered by a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) for 24 hours or more due to a breakdown in retransmission consent negotiations between broadcasters and MVPDs.

The FCC also noted that the proposed reporting framework would require public notice to the Commission of the beginning and resolution of any blackout and submission of information about the number of subscribers affected. 

By requiring timely notification of broadcast station blackouts in a centralized, Commission-hosted database, these proposed reporting requirements would ensure that the Commission and public receive prompt and accurate information about critical MVPD service disruptions involving broadcast stations when they occur, the FCC said. 

In response to the action, commissioner Nathan Simington issued a statement saying, “I approve this item, though I am skeptical of its tentative conclusion that the Commission has authority to enact the proposed reporting requirements under Section 632(b) of the Act. While there are other valid sources of authority for the reporting requirements this item proposes, Section 632(b) is a considerably narrower provision than recent Commission action suggests.”

Faced with a growing problem of blackouts, the FCC noted in the NPR that “Currently, neither broadcast stations nor MVPDs are under any obligation to report to the Commission MVPD service disruptions involving broadcast programming.  Neither the Commission nor the public has a systematic method for learning of significant MVPD service disruptions involving broadcast programming.”

“Given the data discussed above, we are concerned about the increasing number and duration of broadcast station blackouts on MVPD platforms across the country and the Commission’s lack of ready access to basic information about such service disruptions,” the FCC added. 

To provide it with information that would help it access the impact of these disruptions, the FCC said that “We therefore propose requiring MVPDs to notify the Commission of any blackouts of a broadcast station or stations that occur on their systems due to a loss of retransmission consent, and we seek comment on this proposal.  Under this proposal, MVPDs would report incidents during which broadcast programming is disrupted for over 24 hours as a result of an inability to obtain a broadcast station’s consent to retransmit its signal.”

In the NPR it also said that “We seek comment on these understandings and this proposal.  For example, are there circumstances in which the broadcaster, rather than the MVPD, removes the broadcast station(s) from the MVPD’s platform? Alternatively, we seek comment on whether we should impose the reporting obligation solely on broadcasters or impose a joint blackout reporting requirement on both MVPDs and broadcasters.  Would adopting a broadcaster-only reporting requirement or imposing a joint reporting obligation on both MVPDs and broadcasters provide additional benefits to the public?  Do broadcasters have access to different, additional, or more timely information about blackouts that would be beneficial for the public to see in real-time?  If reporting obligations were the same for both parties, would the Commission need to address or attempt to resolve conflicting reports?  Instead of requiring broadcasters to report blackouts, should we rely instead on broadcasters voluntarily providing additional information to supplement blackout notices submitted by MVPDs they believe contain inaccurate or incomplete information?”

As part of the effort, the FCC also said “To streamline reporting, we propose creating an online reporting portal, modeled after the Commission’s Network Outage Reporting System (NORS).”

More information is available here.  

Up until last week, all of the major parties involved in the transition from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0 appeared to be on the same page. Advocates touted the continuing progress in deployments, pointing to the fact that more than 60% of American TV households are capable of receiving NextGen TV. Although CES came and went with little news about NextGen TV, four of the world’s largest manufacturers now offer sets with 3.0 tuners with Sony making them available across its entire TV line. 

On the enterprise side, the evolution of ATSC 3.0 as a data delivery system is ongoing, with companies like Sinclair and its ONE Media subsidiary, along with partners including Bitpath, have made great strides in enabling data delivery to motor vehicles and positioning the standard as an important element in an ecosystem that can provide more efficient methods of wireless delivery to both commercial and non-commercial entities.

More Support Needed
But all is not well with the situation as NAB has now made public. Characterizing the transition as “stalled,” the association asked the FCC last week to recommit itself to promoting the standard to the public and take steps to advance the development of peripherals that consumers could use to access 3.0 signals (since the standard is not-backward compatible)  as well as establish a Task Force to focus on the resolving issues hampering the transition. 

All of these requests lead to what the NAB wants most: A deadline that would allow broadcasters to switch off 1.0 and broadcast just ATSC 3.0. Currently the transition involves stations in individual markets collaborating with a “host station” that carries the station’s 3.0 signals off of one tower, a dual transmission scheme the NAB describes as “wasteful.”

The FCC, which approved the ATSC 3.0 standard in 2017 with the usual grandiose statements of support that come with the passage of a new standard, has never publicly wavered from that support, but has also stressed the importance of constant feedback in an effort to possibly tweak the rules based on changing scenarios.  

In an interview with NAB President Curtis LeGeyt at the 2022 NAB Show, FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel emphasized the commission’s “partnership” with broadcasters in advancing 3.0; but she also wanted feedback. 

“Come to us, tell us what you’re seeing,” she said. “Tell us what’s working and where there might be a hurdle in our rules that we should figure out how to fix.”

Likewise, in a speech last summer in which he voiced support for NextGen TV while raising questions about the privacy issues that come with a standard that will now give broadcasters the ability to gather far more data about viewers than ever before, FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks opened the door for more oversight from the commission. 

“[I]s there perhaps an effort for the FCC to lead here, as we did in developing a Congressionally mandated digital transition equipment subsidy program, or using our role as the regulator of television equipment?” Starks mused. “Let’s get creative.  I want to hear the industry’s ideas here.”

A More Competitive Market
NAB responded last week by holding several meetings with FCC officials that included executives from several broadcast groups, including Nexstar, the nation’s largest. Touting the advantages of a standard that combines the flexibility of IP with far more efficient use of spectrum, the broadcasters told the commission that the deployment of 3.0 will help the industry better compete with streaming companies and similar Silicon Valley giants. 

Add to that the slow but gradual increase in streaming 4K content and broadcasters are understandably concerned that without more clarity to the 3.0 transition, the industry could be left behind. .  

“Ultra-high-definition (or 4K) video has grown from a futuristic capability to a common capability available across nearly all other video platforms,” broadcasters told the FCC. “Soon, 4K will be considered table stakes to gain access to high value content.”

Broadcasters didn’t get to this point without some experience. We’ve been through this before several decades ago in the transition from analog to digital, which ended with the nationwide shut off in 2009. 

And while there were some similarities—the promise of spectrum efficiency and the lack of backward compatibility with existing consumer products—there are some big differences: Advocates of ATSC 3.0 have long promoted a market-driven approach with minimal FCC regulations while the stakes in the transition from analog to digital were far higher with a less than clear outcome: namely a hard deadline (that changed several times) along with a mandate to include 1.0 tuners in all sets sold in the U.S.

Don’t Expect a Mandate
Today, support for a similar tuner mandate is practically non-existent. In the first transition, the CEA initially opposed the mandate but eventually manufacturers had to comply with FCC rules that were implemented in 2005. But that stipulation was also part of an agreement that set a hard deadline for the analog switch off. While NAB is pushing for such a deadline today, it has consistently supported a mostly market-driven approach for the transition to 3.0.

An NAB spokesperson said that broadcasters are not advocating for a mandate and called the consumer electronics industry "a great partner" in the development of the ATSC 3.0 standard.  

The CTA, for its part, has been an integral part of the transition, establishing a program that certifies compatibility with 3.0, giving manufacturers the opportunity to carry a NextGen TV logo as well as working with such initiatives as the AWARN emergency alerting service. 

But it also vigorously opposes a tuner mandate, instead, parroting NAB’s position that the transition be market driven but that they, in the words of CTA President Gary Shapiro, “have to promote the heck out of it.”

TV sets that support NextGen TV represented only 8% of overall TV set sales in the U.S. in 2022 and CTA predicts that almost 5 million will ship to dealers in 2023, representing 12% of the total. It expects that share to hit 50% by 2025. 

However, those figures don’t take into account whether more manufacturers will get on board. Currently only a small number of TV sets—mostly high-end—from LG, Samsung and Hisense—offer 3.0 support, while Sony has gone all in, announcing last year that all of its sets sold in the U.S. will support NextGen TV.

A CTA spokesperson said that the association believes set sales will accelerate, but that broadcasters have to make a purchase more compelling by offering more than what they’re providing now. “We expect unit growth to increase sharply over the next two years as new ATSC 3.0 broadcast features become available,” the spokesperson said.

One of the hurdles in consumer adoption is the fact that the turnover rate for purchasing new sets is now longer than it was two decades ago, which means the time between purchasing new sets is longer. Does that mean there’s a market for peripherals?

So far the market for such devices that support ATSC 3.0 has been minimal to say the least and none of them—including Silicon Dust’s HD Home Run Flex 4K box— have been certified by the CTA to carry the NextGen TV logo. Nevertheless, NAB says it fully supports the development of such devices, according to their spokesperson, who said the association has "worked closely with consumer electronics manufacturers to develop cost-effective tuners and converter devices to help ensure consumers can receive ATSC 3.0 signals.” 

For those who have purchased 3.0 enabled TV sets, how many are actually using them to view NextGen TV? If history is any guide, not many, particularly in such an early phase of the transition. Although in 2022, Nielsen estimated a slight uptick in households that view free over the air TV to 19 million homes, that represents just 15.3% of all households and is equally unimpressive in light of the wave of cord-cutting that has accelerated in recent years. 

The industry's reluctance to release any numbers can lead one to conclude that there's not enough yet to significantly impact public perception of the standard.   

What it Means for Broadcasters
Undergirding the concern over lack of public interest in NextGen TV is the burden imposed by requiring broadcasters to simulcast both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 during the transition. Although the financial burden is minimal—the cost of broadcasting both are mostly in purchasing the equipment needed—the inefficiency really lies in the way the spectrum is used. 

Requiring stations to simulcast with the same amount of bandwidth they had for 1.0 is forcing broadcasters to reduce the bandwidth (and quality to some extent) of their ATSC 1.0 programming. Although 3.0 does allow for a more efficient (HEVC) video coding, there’s just not enough left over to offer 4K HDR, the one feature that most agree could help spur more interest.

Hence the push for a hard deadline to end simulcasts is quickly moving to the top of broadcasters’ wish lists. What hasn’t been publicly mentioned in the current debate is the role of cable and satellite companies who have vigorously opposed any rules requiring them to carry 3.0 and 1.0 at the same time.

In comments to the FCC last year, NCTA-The Television and Internet Association doubled down on its opposition and said it found no problems with extending the transition indefinitely. 

It told the commission that the five year “sunset” for ending 1.0 coming up this summer should continue until at least 2028, and that even by then, the FCC should simply launch an inquiry into whether it should sunset.

The decision by MVPDs on when to carry 3.0 will not be guided by technology issues but rather by business decisions and a consideration of current FCC rules in place. Faced with the cessation of 1.0, cable and satellite operators are likely to negotiate with broadcasters to carry only a stripped down version of 3.0 that will still allow them to comply with must-carry rules. 

But if broadcasters can get enough viewers that want the kind of features that make NextGen TV unique, maybe adding a + paid tier on both broadcast and cable/satellite is possible. 

Will any of this have an impact on the retrans revenues that broadcasters rely on so much? Only time will tell.

3.0's Data Pipe
The consumer side of 3.0 is just one element of the multi-faceted standard. Using 3.0 as a "data pipe" has been promoted as perhaps the “killer app” that will allow broadcasters to offer enterprise-level services such as software updates for anything from gaming systems to rental cars and providing live over the air streaming to vehicles and even playing a role in the slow but steady emergence of autonomous vehicles. 

This market has been of particular interest for Sinclair, whose ONE Media subsidiary has been laser focused on such capabilities for the last several years. 

“There is a pent-up demand for affordable, robust supplements to wireless data distribution,” ONE Media President Mark Aitken told TV Tech. “Broadcasters can fill that void, but we need the government to devote the same attention to accelerating NextGen deployment as it does to support broadband availability.  

“We’ve made remarkable progress so far and need a commitment from the government that 1.0 will sunset on a date certain so that the ecosystem—broadcasters, CE manufacturers, vendors, and users—can anticipate more options,” he added.

Amid all the calls for more intervention from the FCC, one veteran who has seen enough of how Washington works vis a vis media regulations reminds us that more oversight comes with its own set of familiar risks. 

“Setting up an FCC Task Force is a good idea, but it almost guarantees a prolonged process to figure out what to do," said Gary Arlen of Arlen Communications LLC. “Maybe it will buy time so that consumers will actually purchase and use NextGen TV sets, and there will be some perceptible values (picture quality, additional services) that appeal to viewers and consumers.”

This article was updated 02/03/2023.

While streaming has gotten the lion’s share of attention for the past several years, TV viewers are demonstrating that it’s the quality of the content that drives them to watch a particular show, not the destination. That’s the conclusion of Hub Entertainment Research’s annual “Conquering Content” that surveyed the various ways TV consumers discover and watch TV shows.

The survey has some good news for those lamenting the decline of traditional MVPD linear TV services. According to the survey, the percentage of viewers watching live TV from a traditional MVPD service has jumped 6 points in 2022, to 21%, after reaching a low of 15% in 2021. Hub attributes this to the fact that, of the 10 favorite shows viewers named most frequently, four of them—including three of the top four—are available on live TV: Yellowstone, House of the Dragon, Ghosts, and NCIS.

Hub adds that trend lines showing the rate of viewers who responded that their favorite TV show is on a streaming service opposed to those who cite a traditional MVPD service are flattening. Although 75% of survey respondents said their favorite TV show is online, that proportion is identical to 2021; additionally the proportion watching their new favorite show from an MVPD set-top box has increased two points, from 21% in 2021.

So much of how viewers find their favorite shows has changed over the years since streaming became more popular. Traditionally, promotional spots during commercial breaks served as the most popular way viewers discovered new shows but in the streaming world, that responsibility falls onto trailers.

In the survey, 63% said they were more likely to watch a new show if they could watch a trailer first and among those who discovered a show from a trailer, 78% said they discovered it from a trailer that auto-played without them deliberately selecting it, up nearly 20 points since just last year.

Netflix remains the top streamer of choice, according to the survey, however the gap between viewers who watch their favorite shows on Netflix vs. those who watch their favorite shows on a traditional MVPD pay TV service is declining, now at 8 points; 4 points when compared to all five of what Hub identifies as the  “Big 5 SVODs”: Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max. 

Viewers continue to clamor for an easier way to find new content, according to Hub.  The proportion who agree (strongly or somewhat) that they want a “universal listing to find shows from any source” has always been high in Hub’s survey, but it’s even higher in 2022: 61%, up 6 points since last year.

“Insert overused expression here: “content is king,” etc. But cliché or not, it’s clear from these results that viewers will happily go to whatever platform has exclusive rights to the most popular TV shows and movies du jour,” said Peter Fondulas, Principal at Hub and co-author of the report. “Over the past few years, those shows have been increasingly offered by streaming services. But as franchises like Yellowstone and Game of Thrones demonstrate, streaming does not have a necessary monopoly on buzz-worthy content.”

Cord-cutting continues to get worse, with the linear video industry suffering its biggest quarterly losses since COVID knocked out live sports and scripted programming, according to new figures from MoffettNathanson.

Traditional pay-TV distributors lost 9% of their subscribers year over year in the first quarter of 2022. The 9% rate of decline compared to 8.9% in the fourth quarter of 2021 and ties the worst level ever, set in Q1 2021.

Virtual MVPDs aren’t picking up lapsed pay-TV subscribers the way they used to either, contributing to a worsening picture for the traditional pay-TV bundle. In the first quarter, the conversion rate fell to 32.8% from 35.6% in the fourth quarter. 

When looking at traditional and virtual pay-TV distributors combined, subscribers were down 5.1% year over year, close to the all-time worst of 5.5% set in the second quarter of 2020, when COVID knocked out new scripted shows and most live sports.

In all, the linear video industry lost 2.1 million subscribers in the first quarter, the worst since Q1 2020.

Looking at company reports, MoffetNathanson said the biggest losers of subscribers in the first quarter were Comcast, down 511,00 and DirecTV down 496,000. DirecTV, spun off from AT&T last year, reported its latest subscriber numbers to bondholders and debt analysts.

Including estimates for some outfits that don’t publicly report numbers, MoffettNathanson said the Q1 performance left the linear TV business with 81.048 million subscribers.

Cable had 41.661 million subscribers, down 6.9%, satellite had 18.5 million subscribers, down 12%  and the telcos had 5.829 million subscribers, down 13.5%. 

Total traditional subscribers were 66.118 million, down 9% and the virtual MVPDs had 14.930 million subscribers, up 16.7%.

Separately YouTube TV reported on Tuesday that it now has more than 5 million subscribers.

“The rate of decline of the linear business is not something that ‘just happens.’ Many of the media companies have made conscious decisions to strip-mine their cable networks, shifting their best content to their streaming platforms,” note the research firm’s principals, Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson.

“At the same time, they have raised prices relentlessly to offset declining viewership. Both strategies have alienated distributors, who are now more ambivalent than ever about trying to retain video subscribers who are themselves increasingly ambivalent about lower and lower quality video services for which they are asked to pay higher and higher prices,” Moffett and Nathanson said..

Several sports leagues have started to put games on streaming platforms, a trend that may accelerate, further hurting the linear TV business, which was expected to be supported by live programming including news as well as sports.

“Including vMVPDs, the rate of decline for linear video is hovering near its all-time worst levels. And the rate of decline for traditional distributors is the worst it has ever been. That’s not what one would expect if we were gliding towards a stable sports-and-news floor.”  

This article originally appeared on B+C.

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands—Metrological, a Comcast Company, this week began making global music streaming service Deezer available in its app library for MVPD and TV operator customers worldwide.

“We are excited to add Deezer, a music and audio entertainment innovator, to our global content offering,” said Jeroen Ghijsen, CEO of Metrological. “The Lightning [an open lightweight app development language] -based Deezer app was built to provide the optimal music experience on TV. Now, our global operator customer base can seamlessly access Deezer’s extensive catalog of songs, playlists, podcasts and more from the comfort of their living room.”

The Deezer music streaming app provides listeners with access to an audio catalog of more than 73 million songs, podcasts and radio stations. It offers users curated playlists, channels and compilations from its editors as well as a wide range of exclusive original content.

The version of Deezer in the Metrological App Library was developed in Lightning and a Software Development Kit (SDK). The SDK is built for developing high-quality UX and browser-based TV apps with native-like performance. Lightning optimizes the user experience across next-gen as well as memory-constrained legacy devices. Deezer is free to sign up and use. Premium features can be unlocked by subscribing to a premium plan.

“Working with Metrological enables us to help millions of households around the world access Deezer through their TVs and is a key element in our strategy to grow our global reach with Tier 1 providers,” said Deezer chief commercial officer Laurence Miall-d'Aout.

More information is available on the Metrological and Deezer websites.

NEW YORK—In Q3, 2021, traditional cable, telco and satellite video sub losses rose to nearly 1.7 million compared to a year earlier but virtual subscriptions broke out of the doldrums to increase by almost 1.4 million, according to new estimates for total U.S. residential and commercial video subs from Kagan, the media research unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

That is helping smooth the losses for multichannel TV providers, Kagan said. 

It reported that the penetration of traditional multichannel TV services in the U.S. fell to only 52.7% in Q3. But when the subs to newer virtual multichannel video packages like Sling TV are included, the penetration rate is much higher, about 63.9% in Q3. 

When the virtual packages were included in the multichannel sub totals, Kagan reported that “the combined total customers with a subscription to a package of live linear networks dropped by an estimated 282,000, while virtual multichannel packages repeated evidence of third-quarter popularity with the return of football and other live sports.”

But Kagan also noted that penetration rates of the “traditional services are slipping toward the symbolic 50% mark. Estimated traditional residential multichannel subscriptions slipped below 68.6 million, accounting for less than 53% of occupied households. The combined virtual and traditional multichannel households accounted for less than 64% of occupied households at 83.2 million residential subscriptions.”

NEW YORK—Nearly 7.2 million traditional multichannel (MVPD) subscribers opted to cancel their subscriptions in 2020, according to a recent report from Kagan, an S&P Global Market Intelligence media research group.

The 7.2 million combines traditional cable, telco and satellite pay-TV services. According to Kagan, at the end of 2020, only 57% of U.S. occupied households only had a traditional MVPD service. That number is better when combined with a virtual MVPD, with about two-thirds (66.6%) of households having a traditional service and a vMVPD, though that is still down from 2019.

The growth of vMVPD helped mitigate the number of people that dropped live linear channel packages, with 2.7 million new subscribers, but it was not enough to offset traditional MVPDs losses.

MVPD losses did slow in the fourth quarter of 2020, with a total subscription loss of 1.5 million, but vMVPD did not maintain its momentum from the third quarter, per Kagan, netting 223,000.

“[T]he full year decline underscored that the impacts of the pandemic amplified cord-cutting instead of insulating an industry built around home entertainment,” said Kagan.

For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence. 

The ramifications of COVID-19 have been felt throughout the industry—from changing production workflows to accommodate social distancing requirements to modifying transmitters and RF plants to roll out NextGen TV service.

The ripples of the pandemic also have impacted cable TV—a slice of the industry that largely depends on truck rolls to bring new subscribers online. Concern over safety and social distancing for both customers and employees alike has led to some changes in business as usual, says MOBITV President and COO Bill Routt.

MOBITV’s app for MVPDs is helping cable operators circumvent COVID-19 concerns by making self-provisioning possible, win back cord-cutters and upsell existing broadband customers on TV services, he says. 

In this interview, Routt discusses the impact of COVID-19 on cable operators and customers, the company’s strategy to assist MVPDs, how cable operators are holding up to OTT competitors like Hulu and what the future holds for cable TV operators.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTech: How has COVID-19 affected your MVPD customers, and has the MOBITV app-based solution addressed the concerns of consumers and operators about minimizing exposure risk?

Bill Routt: Prior to the pandemic we were seeing installations done two ways. You know we still have about 128 or 129 MVPD customers, and +90% of them are using our fast solution.

It can be installed one of two ways. The cable companies, the MVPDs, can continue to roll trucks, and a lot of them do that. They do that for internet installations, and when they're there, they'll offer either an Android setup box, a managed box or Fire TV Stick, or some streaming device and try to upsell video.

But it's an app-based service, so every one of these operators has a branded app in the Google Play Store, Amazon, Roku and iTunes. So customers can just self-provision when they decide to sign up for cable service. All they really have to do is download the app from the streaming device they're using or smart TV and log in with their credentials. Then they are up and running.

So as you can imagine, we were seeing a lot of operators still installing the truck roll way. Although we're starting to see some of them significantly reducing that number of truck rolls for video installation during the pandemic.

Customers don't want people in their homes, and a lot of cable companies are slowing down; they're hesitant, or they have a lot of protocols before they send install teams into people’s homes.

So, we're seeing an uptick in the self-provisioning. That has been really key for us because it helps our customers continue to grow even when that normal sort of installation channel—if you want to call it that—is impacted by COVID. 

TVT: If the strategy is to send the MVPD customer to an app store to enable MVPD service to prevent possible exposure of workers and customers to COVID-19, doesn’t that make it more likely for customers to purchase VOD OTT services as well and in a way make it harder for your customers to sell premium channels?

BR: If you think about it, our customers have an advantage over a lot of the OTT services. It’s true there are disadvantages, too. They don't have the marketing budget that YouTube TV has. That could be the understatement of the year so far.

But what they do have is a brand and brick and mortar, and they have existing relationships with these customers. So when I say that these guys are benefiting from self-install, I don't mean they're benefiting from a customer somewhere in the Midwest searching through the app store to find their branded cable app to download. 

I think it's more the case that the customer makes a phone call, wants to subscribe to cable television service, or they get an outreach from the cable company that they're using for their broadband already.

They're told, “Hey, you can have this TV service. It's got a full lineup, and you go to whatever app store you want and you search for it by name and download it.”

So, I think that they're not competing head to head from a discovery perspective in the Play Store. If they were, they definitely would be at a disadvantage. But they have an existing customer relationship and they are building that relationship with the customer. They have a broadband relationship with that customer. So they're able to message and direct that customer to the Play Store.

They can leverage that existing relationship to kind of bypass or work around any discovery challenges inside an app store with 100,000 apps.

PLUS: Pay-TV Finds Momentum via vMVPDs, Per LRG

TVT: Are MVPDs seeing the time their customers watch TV grow due to the tendency to stay home and avoid crowds during the pandemic?

BR: Yes. That’s one of the advantages MVPDs have, engagement with the viewer. Prior to the pandemic, people were watching more than eight hours a day on average, right? That’s a tremendous amount of engagement. That obviously has implications for advertising.

With the pandemic, that has increased. It spiked way up to almost 10 hours a day. It kind of leveled off over the summer at about nine-and-a-half-hours a day of viewing. So, MVPDs are seeing even more engagement, which is not a surprise in this kind of shelter-in-place world we’re in right now. 

TVT: What about the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, the OTT alternatives to MVPDs like Hulu, YouTube TV and Sling TV?  Are cord-cutters and cord-nevers continuing to take away big bites from your customers’ potential subscriber universe?

BR: Let's roll back the clock a year, and look at the price differences between the cable lineup and an over-the-top streaming lineup. I think there was a time when there was a concern about the price difference. Where YouTube TV, Sling TV or Hulu were once less expensive than a lot of the MVPD subscription services, that's becoming less and less true. I think that gap has essentially gone away.

That has been a help, and we are seeing that our customers are winning back the cord-cutters. As many as 15% of the customers they are adding are cord-cutters and they are getting a little bit more than that from the broadband-only [customers]. Probably a lot of that is related to the parity in pricing. 

I think it is also driven by—as silly as it sounds—HDMI switching for legacy cable companies. If you are delivering your service over multicast QAM and a set-top box, unless you are Comcast, there’s nothing else on that HDMI input. When you want to search for a program like “The Mandalorian,” you have to switch over HDMI inputs to your streaming device, open up Disney+, watch the show there and then switch back.

So, by having a true streaming service [powered by MOBITV’s app], you’ve got this MVPD app that sits on your Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick or whatever, and that app sits right next to whatever other complementary services you have, whether it’s Disney+, Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime.

The other benefit is that search is now handled by the operating system on all these devices so when you press the microphone button on the remote and search for a program, the operating system will surface all the services you have installed and where that content can be viewed.

TVT: Where will the cable TV business be by the end of 2021?

BR: People want their MVPD lineup. From an industry perspective, cable still pays the bills. 

The engagement is just so high. The revenue is phenomenal for the content owners, obviously. I don’t see that changing in the immediate future. 

Customers are very satisfied with the full lineup of entertainment, local and sports on their pay-TV app, but that’s not necessarily sufficient. They also want original content, which is driving subscriptions and a lot of churn as they subscribe to a service to watch one show, cancel the subscription when it’s over and move on to the next service and show. 

Whatever they decide the complementary services are that satisfy their interests, I think they want them all in one spot so they can easily move back and forth.

WASHINGTON—As part of the FCC’s stated effort to modernize media regulations, the commission will look to tackle rules regarding program carriage disputes between video program vendors and MVPDs during its November Open Commission Meeting.

According to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, the current rules regarding program carriage has a loophole in the one-year statute of limitations when a video programming vendor may file a program carriage complaint against an MVPD. The one-year statute of limitations begins when the vendor says it intends to file a complaint, but it can currently do so whenever, including years after a dispute and potential rule violation.

To close this loophole, a new Report & Order would clarify that the one-year period for filing a dispute begins when an MVPD rejects or fails to acknowledge a request for program carriage or request to negotiate for program carriage. In addition, the rules would also modify the effective dates for program carriage decision by the FCC’s Administrative Law Judge to match those currently applicable to other such ALJ decisions.

Pai says the FCC would also seek to harmonize rules, where possible, for the resolution of program carriage, program access, retransmission consent and open video system complaints in these areas.

The full agenda for the November meeting was shared by Pai in a blog post.

The FCC’s November Open Commission Meeting will take place on Nov. 18 and be available to the public via streaming on the FCC website.

WASHINGTON—Qualified noncommercial educational (NCE) TV translator stations will not be required to send an email notification regarding carriage to MVPDs by Oct. 1, as the FCC has officially granted a petition on the matter.

America’s Public Television Stations (APTV) and PBS filed a joint petition to the FCC about its newly adopted MVPD carriage election notice requirements, which would have required NCE translator stations, as well as qualified LPTV stations, to email a “baseline” carriage notice to any MVPDs on which they were seeking or expecting carriage during the 2021-2023 carriage cycle. The deadline to do so was going to be Oct. 1.

The petition argued that sending such emails would result in a “substantial burden” for NCE stations, and as a result the requirement should be waived. Key to their arguments were that the NCE translator stations do not originate programming, but rather rebroadcast of NCE full-power TV stations; that NCEs may only elect “must carry” options for MVPDs, while LPTVs can select either “must carry” or retransmission consent; also, in many cases, NCEs do not know which MVPDs are carrying them and there is no resource to easily determine the information. Ultimately, emailing MVPDs provides no benefit, the petition argued, but could result in loss of service in the event that an NCE fails to provide proper notice.

“Given the unique characteristics of NCE translators, the public interest would be best served by waiving the baseline email notification requirement for NCE translators adopted in the 2020 Report and Order,” the FCC said.

The petition went unopposed by MVPDs.

The FCC added that email requirements are still in place for all qualified LPTV stations.

For more information, the full FCC document is available online. 

WASHINGTON—FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to close the book on a cold proceeding that was once red hot: New regs on the navigation device market meant to spur over-the-top video competition to cable.

On Aug. 14, Pai circulated an item entitled "Expanding Consumers' Video Navigation Choices; Commercial Availability of Navigation Devices," which was a blast from the past.

But since Pai was a strong opponent of new cable set-top regs—proposed under his predecessor, Tom Wheeler—it was likely not a revival of the issue for further consideration. It isn't.

An FCC spokesperson confirmed that, instead, it is officially closing the still-open proceeding, and with an exclamation point. "This item would terminate the proceeding in which the prior commission proposed imposing complex and unnecessary regulations on the navigation device market that generated bipartisan opposition within and outside the agency, and serious concerns from a wide range of stakeholders and experts, including the U.S. Copyright Office," they said.

Wheeler's proposed rules would have required pay-TV providers to offer consumers a free app, controlled by the MVPD, to access all the programming they pay for on a variety of devices, including tablets, smartphones, gaming systems, streaming devices or smart TVs. That, in turn, would make it easier for consumers not to have to rent boxes from their provider.

Pay-TV providers are also would have been required to provide their apps to widely deployed platforms, such as Roku, iOS, Windows and Android.

The rules would also call on MVPDs to support integrated search for linear and VOD, alongside other video services accessible on the device, such as OTT offerings. Pay-TV providers would also have been barred from discriminating in search results or promoting the pay-TV app over other sources of programming in the search function.

Cable ops pushed back hard on the new regs and Wheeler could never lock down the three votes he needed before the election, and Pai, who opposed the regs, replaced him.

It got so far as being scheduled for a vote but was pulled from a September 2016 public meeting agenda at the last minute. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel supported providing more choice and lower-cost options for navigation devices, but had issues with the proposal to have the FCC backstop app licensing agreements, and reached out to programmers to clarify their problems with the item. Programmers said they still had many.

The FCC must still vote to close the docket, but Pai almost certainly has the two other Republican votes to do so.

WASHINGTON—The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau has added MVPDs to the equation for figuring out costs and payments for the upcoming C-band transition, and is seeking further comment on the estimates for lump sum payments for earth stations.

As the Bureau prepares for the C-band transition, which will see current C-band spectrum users move to the upper 200 MHz of the band while the other 300 MHz is to be used for wireless broadband (280 MHz auctioned off, 20 MHz as a guardband), it previously released a Preliminary Cost Catalog that identified qualified earth stations and some of the elements that would be covered as part of the move.

After comments were received on the initial Cost Catalog regarding the eligible earth stations and costs, the FCC is adhering to requests to establish a separate category for MVPD earth stations. The Bureau acknowledges that MVPD stations may have additional costs compared to non-MVPD stations, like integrated receiver/decoder (IRD) replacements.

PLUS: NAB: C-Band Cost Catalog Underestimating Transition Costs

Comments submitted to the Bureau also included methodologies for calculating the lump sum amounts, proposed lump sum amounts and additional costs.

The Bureau now seeks additional comments on the full slate of categories being offered and the methodologies for estimating costs and proposed payments. The deadline for comments will be seven days after publication in the Federal Register.

The full document is available online. 

WASHINGTON—MVPDs’ arguments that broadcasters have undue bargaining power when it comes to retransmission consent negotiations hold little water, according to the NAB in comments filed to the FCC. In addition, the organization said that the FCC should apply ownership limits to MVPDs’ multicast streams and to LPTV stations.

This all came in as a response to reply comments on the FCC’s request for input on the upcoming Communications Marketplace Report on the state of media competition that will be given to Congress.

PLUS: ATVA: Retrans Disputes Top Problems of Broadcast Competition

NAB said that the complaints from MVPDs regarding retransmission consent have been used multiple times, but still have no bearing on the need to reform local TV ownership rules.

“As NAB has explained innumerable times, MVPDs’ unhappiness about paying retransmission consent fees does not mean that TV broadcasters have any undue bargaining power over MVPDs; that those fees are, in any economic sense, too high; or that changes to FCC rules intended to enhance large pay-TV/broadband companies’ position at the negotiating table are in any way justified,” the NAB filing reads.

Rather, NAB makes the case that because of the coronavirus pandemic that has impacted broadcasters with a blow to the advertising market and local TV station revenue, the need for broadcasters to form competitively viable ownership structures so that they can continue to serve their local communities has been confirmed.

NAB had previously commented on the topic by saying that there should be an expansion of regulated competitors and deregulations on ownership rules.

For more information, read NAB’s full comments online. 

WASHINGTON—Cable and satellite operators won’t be required to lick any more stamps when it comes to sending out certain required notices to TV stations, as the FCC has unanimously voted to allow MVPDs to send notices as emails rather than as traditional paper notifications.

Under previous rules, cable and satellite TV providers had to submit paper notifications to local TV stations before taking certain actions, like launching in a new market, deleting or repositioning a station in the channel lineup or retransmitting certain stations. With the new rules, these notifications can be sent out via email.

Stations that have an online public inspection file will receive the electronic notifications in the inbox used for communications related to the election of must carry/retransmission consent status. Stations without a public file will receive notifications via their general inbox.

This result is said to be part of the FCC’s Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative led by Chairman Ajit Pai, which seeks to eliminate or modify media regulations that are “outdated, unnecessary or unduly burdensome,” per the commission. It was first proposed in July 2019.

Chairman Pai and all of the FCC commissioners (Michael O’Rielly, Jessica Rosenworcel, Brendan Carr and Geoffrey Starks) all voted for the update. 

WASHINGTON—It’s 2020, and soon having broadcasters sending paper notifications for station actions may be a thing of the past. In a FCC blog post, Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the commission will vote on whether to eliminate required paper notifications in favor of electronic notifications.

This is part of the FCC’s Modernization of Media Regulation Initiative, which aims to update rules and regulations so they better match the current media marketplace. According to Pai, the replacement of “wasteful and costly paper notifications” has been a recurring theme.

As it currently stands, cable and satellite operators are required to provide broadcast TV stations with paper notices before they take certain actions. For cable operators this can be things like commencing service in a market or deleting/repositioning a broadcast station. For satellite providers, this can cover retransmitting certain stations or launching new services.

The FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on eliminating paper notifications in July 2019, which Pai said received unanimous support from commenters.

The FCC will officially vote on the rule at its next open meeting on Jan. 30.

WASHINGTON—FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wants to stop any premature panic among cable subscribers that they may be losing channels as a result of retransmission disputes, and to do so has proposed eliminating the required 30-day notification period cable operators must give in favor of doing so “as soon as possible.”

This new measure would be up for discussion and vote during the final FCC meeting of 2019 on Dec. 12.

With the current 30-day notice requirement, cable operators are often forced to let their subscribers know that they could be losing access to a channel or group of channels, only to then strike a deal at the last minute to keep the channels on air for those subscribers. Pai believes that by removing the 30-day requirement consumers can be more “accurately informed and not confused” about what is happening to their service.

“[W]e don’t want consumers to be inundated by premature and inaccurate notices about channel changes that never come to pass,” Pai wrote in a blog post. “And our rule begs the question whether the failure to reach an agreement in the 30 days before a contract expires is within a cable operator’s control. After all, as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.”

There have been multiple instances this year of cable operators and TV stations warning subscribers of the potential loss of channel, only to strike a deal before their contract expires.

By removing the 30-day in advance notification and instead allowing such warnings to go out “as soon as possible” will provide more accurate and clearer messages, according to Pai.

WASHINGTON—Is cable sandbagging ATSC 3.0? Or are operators just jockeying to limit competition to their evolving data transmission business?

A sequence of recent actions suggests that cable operators are pushing back against collaboration with the Advanced Television Standards Committee’s efforts to enable carriage of the format on MVPD systems. It is unclear whether they legitimately believe, as claimed, that it is “too early” to establish ATSC 3.0 (aka Next Gen TV) retransmission procedures or if the MVPDs are defensively rejecting the standard’s data transmission opportunities as competition to cable’s own digital agenda.

In recent weeks:

• SCTE bluntly told ATSC that it will “defer initiation of the work” concerning carriage of ATSC 3.0 over cable” until the broadcast industry completes its standardization efforts.
• Charter Communications, the second largest cable multisystem operator held a curious meeting with top Federal Communications Commission staff members to explain that proposed 3.0 wireless data delivery plans don’t mesh with existing retransmission agreements. During the FCC meeting, Charter also warned of eventual retransmission problems in the Phoenix model market field trial of 3.0 broadcasts.
• America’s Public Television Stations (the association of non-commercial broadcasters) and the Public Broadcasting Service met with FCC officials to discuss a possible exemption of noncommercial educational licensees from the simulcasting mandate in the NextGen standard.

The spate of cable resistance collectively suggests that the festering 18-month old Next Gen TV rulemaking faces a challenging road ahead. It raises questions about an all-voluntary transition to ATSC 3.0. And since, as some skeptics have observed, the necessary hardware will be relatively inexpensive, cable companies’ recalcitrance to carry ATSC 3.0 services stems from their reluctance to support possible competition.

Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC, dismissed the recent cable maneuvers, pointing out that MVPD operators have had “extensive guest access” to the planning process at ATSC meetings.

“We want full access from the full value chain,” Noland said. “Everybody has to see value. We welcome and hope for input from the MVPDs.” She characterized ATSC as a “very flexible system” that will enable a variety of business goals and rejected claims by cable operators that the standard is not complete yet.

“The standard is ‘done’ as of January 2018,” Noland emphasized, acknowledging that it is “a living, breathing document” with expectations that it will be modified through a “measured revision process that accounts for the need for stability.”

“I feel good that ATSC’s membership wants the correct balance between stability and evolvability,” Noland added. She pointed out that an ATSC specialist group is focusing on redistribution, including the conversion of 3.0 to 1.0. NCTA: The Internet and Television Association was a founding member of ATSC and is a participant in the specialist group.

“Cable operators will have to deal with the fact that channels are moving, as they’ve done with the repack,” Noland said. “The FCC stopped short of saying that 1.0 and 3.0 must be exactly the same. The bottom line is that 1.0 is there and available for at least [five years].”

Given that reality, Noland agreed that “cable operators can say, ‘We don’t need to be ready yet.’”

CHARTER’S OPPOSITION PUTS FOCUS ON DIFFERENCES

The recognition of an extended transition process doesn’t explain why Charter brought up the issue, which is not moving quickly at the FCC.

At the FCC meeting in late July, Kevin Leddy, senior vice president, Technology Planning and Application, and Maureen O’Connell, vice president, Regulatory Affairs for the nation’s second largest cable operator, told FCC staff that the MSO does not intend to carry 3.0 signals since broadcasters have not yet settled on standards. Leddy and O’Connell also told FCC officials from the Office of Engineering and Technology Office, Media Bureau and four Commissioners’ staffs that many of the proposed auxiliary services (such as wireless data transmission) do not fit with existing retransmission agreements.

Charter executives emphasized that ATSC 3.0 “is not backwards-compatible with any existing equipment in the home or in the MVPD ecosystem,” according to their ex parte notice. They also questioned the consumer benefits of the ATSC 3.0 transition, noting that “broadcasters have yet to define which among those possible uses of the new standard they are interested in pursuing.”

According to their filing, Leddy and O’Connell stressed that “many of the uses identified are already available to consumers over the internet [such as delivery of video to mobile devices, movie downloads, data delivery to cars, and data enhancements to video], which could limit demand for ATSC 3.0 consumer equipment.’

In their presentation to the FCC staff, Leddy and O’Connell also pointed to the anomaly they perceive in the current Phoenix Next Gen TV tests now underway. They claimed that “the over-the-air ATSC 1.0 signals involved in the Phoenix test market are different from the ATSC 1.0 signals being delivered by fiber.”

“Because these signals don’t match, there is currently no backup for ATSC 1.0 that can be utilized by MVPDs,” they concluded. Their presentation featured charts illustrating how the shared transmissions of current 1.0 signals would not work in the future 3.0 environment. Those charts were identical to illustrations used in a recent presentation by a top executive of Cox Communications, the major cable TV company in Phoenix.

(Note: Cox Communications operates separately from the Cox Media Group, which recently sold majority stakes in its TV stations to Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm. Cox Media Group is a member of the Pearl TV consortium, which is managing the Phoenix trial.)

When asked for further details about the FCC presentation, Charter officials declined to provide any information—including the reason for the discussion of the Phoenix situation since Charter is not a significant provider in that market. “We have no comment beyond the ex parte filing. It speaks for itself,” a Charter spokesperson said.

Anne Schelle, managing director of Pearl TV, questioned Charter’s (and Cox’s) illustration of incompatibility. She said that the “chart showed us there is no problem when we did the plan.”

Schelle acknowledged that there is “no equipment right now to enable it” [3.0 retransmission], but said that Pearl is working in Phoenix with many organizations, including CableLabs, the cable industry’s research and development organization.

Neither Pearl nor CableLabs would identify the nature or status of their collaboration. “We’ll look at 3.0 implementation with cable in many different ways,” Schelle said. “That will take more time,” although she did not predict a timetable other than noting that Pearl is “starting testing integration and multiple paths.”

FIVE-YEAR WAITING PERIOD

Noland, Schelle and others point out that the rules for ATSC 3.0 implementation include a mandate that broadcasters must continue to transmit in the 1.0 format for at least five more years. Analysts contend that cable operators will eventually figure out how to handle the Next Gen TV transition as they are doing with the repack. Moreover, since the FCC stopped short of saying that 1.0 and 3.0 must be exactly the same, cable operators’ contention that they “don’t need to be ready yet” is a legitimate positioning statement as they develop their 3.0 strategies.

The cable industry’s stance regarding this transition process took on added significance in a memo from the Engineering Committee of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers to ATSC ‘s Noland. The mid-August missive (obtained by TV Technology) came in response to a “Liaison Request Concerning Standardization of ATSC 3.0 For Delivery by Cable.”

“It would be better for us to defer initiation of the work until such time as the broadcast industry efforts are completed,” said the message from the SCTE committee, which did not identify any individual sender. SCTE said it “appreciates” ATSC’s request to develop a coordination process—calling it a reflection of the “history of productive collaboration between ATSC and SCTE.”

“However, we do not feel that the ATSC 3.0 specification in its current form is ready for work in SCTE,” according to the memo. “Specifically, ATSC 3.0 allows a very wide variety of operating points and we request that the broadcast industry develop and provide the necessary constraints, in the form of ‘launch profiles’ along with associated priorities, timeframes for availability, and cadence of expected deployment.”

Beyond the SCTE response, Charter’s FCC presentation spurred other reactions. “The only apparent motivation behind Charter’s filing is its desire to stifle competitive innovation,” said NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton. He also pointed out that MVPDs are not required to carry Next Gen TV signals, and broadcasters transitioning to 3.0 are required to simulcast ATSC 1.0 signals.

ONE Media 3.0 LLC, Sinclair’s high-tech development subsidiary, aaccused Charter of confusing standards with flexible uses for non-television delivery of data.

“If MVPDs and broadcasters are motivated to add an ATSC 3.0 delivered feature or service to the MVPD’s platform, implementation will be achieved in a reasonable timeframe and based on mutual business objectives,” said ONE Media Executive Vice President Jerald Fritz. He pointed out that, “Broadcasters have been working closely with equipment vendors to establish basic television service profiles.”

NON COMMERCIAL 3.0 SERVICE

Public TV stations—which have a history of being aggressive in developing advanced TV technologies—became involved in the 3.0 process as soon as the Next Gen TV rulemaking was issued in February 2018. Lonna Thompson, executive vice president/chief operating officer and general counsel for America’s Public Television Stations, pointed out that public stations face three scenarios, beginning with the differing needs of rural public TV stations, state-wide public TV groups and university-run stations. In particular, the association is looking at delivering 3.0 services to places that don’t have broadband.

The APTS/PBS presentation to the FCC staff focused on the difficulties that some stations will face if they must simulcast 1.0 and 3.0.

“We want to be exempt from simulcast rules,” Thompson said, focusing on the possibility that the requirement could strand some stations. “Licensees know their communities best.” She pointed out that public stations “have been active in market transitions,” including participation in the Phoenix trial.

Thompson also emphasized that public stations have a long history of working in datacasting and other expanded services. She said that stations are working with first responders, the National Guard and other organizations that can use 3.0’s data capabilities.

An NCTA cited the association’s 18-month-old comments to the FCC when the commission opened its Next Gen TV rulemaking, adding that the association would have “nothing more to say” about the current situation.

ATSC’s Noland and others in the broadcast clique cited their long-term support for collaboration with broadcasters, taking hope from the comments of Steve Watkins, Cox Communications’s executive director-Strategic Technology Policy. At an SCTE conference, Watkins focused on the “need to flesh out what’s real and reduce complexity.”

Watkins said, presumably on behalf of his cable company, “If the content/experience is compelling and customers want it, we want to be in a position to deliver it.”

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.

WASHINGTON—The battle over getting Next Gen TV onto pay-TV platforms is heating up.

ONE Media 3.0 LLC, a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group focused on developing technology for the ATSC 3.0 television broadcast standard, fired back at Charter Communications over the cable operator’s criticism of the lack of standards for carrying ATSC 3.0 signals on cable TV.

Charter recently met with the FCC to voice its concerns about requiring cable TV operators to carry ATSC 3.0, citing the fact that it is not compatible with ATSC 1.0 and that broadcasters have not adopted standards needed for MVPDs to broadcast ATSC 3.0. ONE Media 3.0 said such concerns are “misplaced and premature.”

“At this time and for the foreseeable future, MVPDs will not require equipment to decode ATSC 3.0 signals because, with respect to the primary signal, a broadcast station that is transitioning to ATSC 3.0 must simulcast in ATSC 1.0 per the FCC’s rules,” said Jerald Fritz, executive vice president, strategic and legal affairs for ONE Media 3.0, in a letter to the commission. “As a result, MVPDs will continue to have an ATSC 1.0 source for the primary signal.”

Charter’s criticism over the lack of standards for ATSC 3.0 to be carried on cable TV platforms is also misplaced, Fritz said.

“Charter appears to confuse standards with flexible uses for non-television delivery of data,” Fritz wrote. “One of the extraordinary features of the ATSC 3.0 standard is its inherent flexibility enabling multiple service profiles. Broadcasters have been working closely with equipment vendors to establish basic television service profiles.

“This critical process, however, will have no impact on the availability of television services to MVPD subscribers,” Fritz added. “Moreover, there is no requirement for uniformity among broadcasters in order for MVPDs to make ATSC 3.0’s features and services available to their subscribers at such time as they agree with the broadcaster to carry the ATSC 3.0 signals.”

Fritz advocates a market-based solution to determine what ATSC 3.0 services MVPDs could offer.

“If a MVPD and broadcaster are motivated to add an ATSC 3.0 delivered feature or service to the MVPD’s platform, implementation will be achieved in a reasonable timeframe and based on mutual business objectives,” he said.

Fritz also criticized Charter’s contention that demand for ATSC 3.0 will be limited because some of its features are already available via IP, saying such reasoning was “backwards.”

“Enhancing the broadcast platform with features and capabilities that have already proven to be popular with consumers should increase, not decrease the demand for broadcast reception products and services,” Fritz said, adding that such deployment considerations have “zero impact” on MVPD access to broadcaster-provided programming.

“The implicit suggestion that the Commission should delay the rollout of Next Generation broadcast services because not all potential use cases have been identified and that some services may be available (albeit much less efficiently) by current MVPD internet providers reflects a particularly jaundiced view of the Commission’s regulatory role and should be summarily rejected.” Fritz said. 

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.

DALLAS—The average subscriber to standalone pay-TV service spent 10% less from 2016 to 2018, with consumers reporting monthly spending dropping from $84 to $76, according to new research from Parks Associates.

The finding, reported in Parks Associates’ “360 View: Entertainment Services in the US,” illustrates the pricing pressure providers are encountering, resulting in growing conflict in carriage negotiations.

As a consequence, interest among providers in greater vertical and horizontal consolidation continues to grow, according to the research organization.

"Traditional pay-TV providers (MVPDs) have faced continued subscriber losses due to increasing consumer choice from OTT services, so they are deploying skinny bundles and vMVPD services to create more choice among viewers," said Parks Associates President Elizabeth Parks.

Packaged media, such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs, also have felt the sting of changing viewing habits.

Spending on non-pay-TV home video entertainment, as reported by consumers, dropped 30% per month over the past seven years, from its peak in 2014 of $40 to just over $20 last year, said Parks Associates.

Movie theater spending, as well, fell 50% from 2014 to 2018, according to the research group.

The only category to buck the trend was spending on streaming and downloaded internet video entertainment, which has maintained average monthly spending of $8 to $9.

"Subscription online video is the only growth category for consumer-paid video entertainment beyond pay TV,” said Brett Sappington, senior research director and principal analyst at Parks Associates. “Operators, struggling with declining ARPU for standalone pay-TV services, are anxious to leverage this trend."

Leverage takes different forms from operator to operator. Companies like Comcast and DISH are offering subscriptions to third-party OTT video services and integrating them into their discovery interfaces, essentially serving as content aggregators, said Sappington. Others like AT&T and DISH have introduced vMVPD services, he said.

Among the other key findings in the new report:

• 20% of U.S. broadband households have no pay-TV service.
• The Net Promoter Score (NPS) for traditional pay-TV service is weaker than other content types.
• The average number of connected devices per broadband household in 2018—excluding smart home devices—reached 8.4.
• 12% of U.S. broadband households cut the pay-TV cord in 2018.

More information about the report is available on the Parks Associates website.

NEW YORK—Subscribers to streaming/OTT services generally are OK with the concept of advertising in exchange for ad-supported or free subscriptions. However, they are sensitive about the value of ads in exchange for lower subscription rates and are not interested in ads in a traditional linear format.

These are a few of the findings in Hub Entertainment Research’s “Monetization of Video” report, which surveyed 1,764 broadband subscribers last month.

According to the survey, an equal percentage of respondents are cool with advertising on OTT services in exchange for free or lower-cost subscriptions, even without the capability to skip ads. However, the preference falls with age; 20% of respondents 18-24 do not support ad-supported streaming services, but that figure is 10% for older viewers.

Streamers that do use ads to subsidize subscription costs have to be sensitive to viewer perceptions of ad/price balance, according to Hub. “If Netflix is considering including ads in its service, the results show that the monthly subscription fee would need to be significantly lower than the current fee—to avoid losing subscribers,” the researcher said.

Subscribers also don’t want their streaming service to reflect a traditional linear TV service either. “Almost no respondents who viewed a show recently on linear through an MVPD considered the ad load reasonable—and a third felt it was unreasonable,” Hub said.

Another attractive feature for OTT services is the absence of term contracts that pay-TV providers traditionally require. Among 18-34 year olds, a seven-day free trial has become more important in attracting new subscribers in recent years, with the percentage rising from 29% to 38% in one year, Hub said.

Hulu is tops in customer satisfaction, with 80% of respondents rating it an “excellent” or “good” value, while Netflix came in second at 75%. That’s also the percentage of respondents who say that having access to Netflix on their cable box makes their cable TV subscription more valuable.

ALEXANDRIA, VA.—Everyone involved with examining how cable systems will retransmit broadcast nextgen ATSC 3.0 signals concurs on one point, although they say it in different ways: “It’s too early.” “Still pretty vague.” “Will evolve over time.” “A problem that won’t exist soon.”

But broadcasting and cable technical executives are already discussing how multichannel video program distributors (MVPD) will handle “redistribution” (the new preferred term) of the forthcoming all-IP ATSC 3.0 signals. The recently created Specialist Group on Conversion and Redistribution of ATSC 3.0 Service has held several preliminary meetings on the topic, and the Digital Video Services committee of the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) will make its first plunge into redistribution issues during its quarterly meeting in San Diego this month.

Mark Richer, ATSC presidentBABY STEPS

Mark Richer, president of the Advanced TV Systems Committee, expects that ultimately 3.0 redistribution decisions will be based on business and regulatory factors, not technology.

“ATSC 3.0 is specifically designed to be carried over broadband on IP networks,” Richer said. He envisions that “many layers” of the 3.0 signal could be pulled in by cable operators. “There is no big technical problem,” Richer said, but he emphasized that ATSC’s role is focused on establishing standards, not on business decisions.

The new ATSC specialists group is formally called Technology Group 3, Subcommittee 37 (TG3/S37), or “S37.” A broadcast executive on the subcommittee who insisted on anonymity (as did a half-dozen other project participants contacted by TV Technology) acknowledged that there will be “a difference in timetables” between broadcast and cable organizations as the discussions evolve.

“Each group is scoping out what to deal with in conversion and redistribution,” the source said. “Right now, it’s just baby steps.” He pointed out that various organizations are at different stages in their IP deployment process, and noted that there are “other challenges” as broadcasters move away from a TV-centric architecture into the IP environment.

After a meeting of S27 members in New York last month, a broadcast technology executive in attendance characterized the situation as “still very early.”

“Each group is scoping out what to deal with,” he said, citing broadcasters’ concerns about how to convert signals from 3.0 to a variety of cable and satellite environments. “The big problems are just beginning to be discussed.”

There is no timetable for S37’s agenda or decisions/recommendations.

As ATSC 3.0 evolves, broadcasters envision using it for many interactive as well as non-video services, most of which fall far beyond traditional cable retransmission agreements. Many analysts expect a long transition period since 3.0 is not backward-compatible, and hence current TV receivers will not be able to pick up signals.

Dean Stoneback, senior director, engineering and standards at the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, pointed out that, “there’s no need to convert 3.0 to 1.0 until the 1.0 ceases to exist—until broadcasters turn off the 1.0 signal.” Stone-back said his group’s initial discussions at the December DVS committee meeting will examine how to handle backward-compatibility as well as issues such as how to ingest 3.0 content.

SCTE is an “observer” at ATSC and has been invited to attend future S37 meetings, which will explore redistribution.

One goal of the current discussions is to establish procedures for MVPDs to carry ATSC 3.0 content, probably by converting it to the current ATSC 1.0 standard, which they distribute. According to its mandate, the ATSC TG3/S37 “develops and maintains ‘Recommended Practices, Standards’ and other documents relating to the conversion and redistribution of ATSC 3.0 services.”

Another cable technology executive familiar with the ATSC 3.0 process pointed out that the 3.0 switch from 8-VSB modulation to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is just one of the challenges facing cable redistribution. In addition, the move away from MPEG-2 transport will mean that existing set-top boxes would be unable to receive the ATSC 3.0 signals. Moreover, 3.0 will introduce new codecs and an application layer based on HTML5—all of which means that 3.0 will face a lack of existing infrastructure.

He also raised the issue that there is “no answer yet about who will actually set the standards and specifications” for redistribution, although he contended that “the problem will eventually be resolved.”

“That’s probably something ATSC will be responsible for” since both the input and output will be in ATSC formats, he added.

As for carriage of non-video IP content, he said “that’s in the application layer” so it’s a matter for business strategy and “outside the scope of what we can discuss” on the technical side.

A veteran broadcast executive who has long been active in ATSC said that he expects “advanced services and features of 3.0 will require new agreements that will be established in future retransmission negotiations.”

Richer said that MVPDs could pull in many of the layers of 3.0, underscoring his contention that there is “no big technical problem,” but that eventually business decisions will determine cable or satellite redistribution of 3.0 signals.

NEXT STEPS FOR NEXT-GEN TV

ATSC expects to confirm its 3.0 standard in early 2017, and then it will take several years to deploy technology through the U.S. broadcast infrastructure. (In Korea, which has adopted the ATSC 3.0 standard already, TV stations will begin beaming 3.0 signals in February, to prepare for wider transmission of the signals in time for the 2018 Winter Olympics there).

Stoneback of SCTE pointed out that since cable uses quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and telco TV systems generally use IP, the arrival of broadcast 3.0 faces technical hurdles aside from the current total lack of equipment.

Another technology consultant observed that the challenge involves MPEG-2 transport stream versus multicast User Datagram Protocol (UDP)/IP. He expects that this “minor technical problem” will be resolved as cable systems themselves transition to IP-delivered services.

A broadcast technology executive familiar with the 3.0 process also pointed out that the redistribution negotiations will eventually encompass factors such as the SMPTE standard for compressed audio/video and the High Definition Serial Digital Interface—all of which must be lined up for decisions about how/if they are included in the redistribution plans.

Hence, the importance of these early-stage technology discussions.

The S37 subcommittee includes cable and satellite distributors as well as broadcasters and technology suppliers. NCTA, CableLabs and Comcast are members of ATSC, as are many equipment companies (both receiver makers such as LG, Samsung and Sony, and transmission/studio product manufacturers, such as Gates Air, Harmonic and Panasonic) plus broadcast station groups and networks and program producers.

All sides are awaiting a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from the FCC dealing with ATSC 3.0. In response to an FCC Public Notice last spring about plans to explore ATSC 3.0 policy, the American Cable Association and NCTA, which represents cable operators and vendors, opposed any rush to action.

“Cable operators have no legal obligation to carry the ATSC 3.0 signal during the transition,” NCTA said in its filing last May. “Carriage of an ATSC 1.0 signal will continue to fulfill cable operators’ obligations.”

In testimony to Congress in September, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai (a possible temporary or permanent FCC Chairman after the Trump transition next month) said he would like to see the FCC’s ATSC 3.0 rulemaking proceed “no later than the end of this year.” That is much faster than current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler expects. Pai told a Senate oversight committee that, “just as the United States is leading the way on 5G in the mobile space, so too should we be at the forefront of innovation in the broadcast space.

“Let’s allow broadcasters who wish to move forward with ATSC 3.0 to pursue this pro-consumer path as quickly as possible,” Pai said.

AFFECTED BY THE SPECTRUM AUCTION

Although the ATSC 3.0 transition is unrelated to the current broadcast spectrum auction, some analysts have suggested that TV station owners may factor the expense and opportunities of future IP services into their auction strategies.

After his remarks to a Media Institute luncheon in Washington last month, NAB President/CEO Gordon Smith waved off questions about whether the auction and 3.0 implementation are intertwined. He said that the two issues will unfold separately.

“The auctions will be long over before 3.0 reaches the marketplace,” Smith said in response to a query from TV Technology. “The outcome of the auction is not in our hands and we hope” it progresses smoothly.

“There are many complexities in the move to 3.0,” Smith said, after citing the oft-repeated benefits the technology will bring to broadcasters. He acknowledged that the 3.0 transition will be “expensive” but that his members “are anxious to advance their businesses” through the services it will enable. This is an option that recognizes good policy,” Smith said.

Meanwhile, NAB has continued to challenge the FCC’s efforts to accelerate the post-auction repacking of local airwaves. In reply comments for the FCC proceeding about spectrum repacking, NAB argued that the 39-month timetable is unfeasible and it urged the commission to reject cable operators’ arguments that they should not be subject to must-carry and retransmission requirements for TV stations that temporarily share channels.

Such decisions could eventually have an impact on cable’s carriage of 3.0 signals if the repacking process extends for four years or longer—in other words, if 3.0 rollout occurs during repacking.

NAB concluded that “the record of this proceeding” suggests that the commission’s proposed repacking timetable “is unlikely to produce a workable and efficient plan in practice.”

CTIA, which represents wireless carriers, has urged the commission to stick with its 39-month timetable, which would give wireless providers early access to the acquired airwaves. In the process, carriers could get a jump on services that may eventually be developed for 3.0 non-broadcast features, according to analysts who follow inter-industry developments.

All of these policy possibilities mean that the current low-key S37 “redistribution” technical discussions may simmer for a while before boiling up in financially charged negotiations when the market is ready for 3.0 services.

Gary Arlen is president of Arlen Communications LLC, a research and consulting firm. He can be reached atwww.ArlenCom.com.

For more on ATSC 3.0, see TV Technology’sATSC 3.0 silo.