WASHINGTON—ATSC 3.0 Security Authority, LLC is once again defending the digital rights management features and the Emergency Alert System capabilities of NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0 with a sharp rebuttal of arguments made by Weigel Broadcasting to the Federal Communications Commission.
In a June 26 letter to the FCC, the A3SA stressed that “A3SA-suppported devices are designed to be fully compatible with the Commission’s Emergency Alert System (EAS) and to ensure that emergency alerts are reliably delivered to viewers. That is how the A3SA content protection framework was designed, and that is how it operates across the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem.”
While recent filings by Weigel Broadcasting Co. suggested that issues identified with the delivery of EAS alerts are somehow indicative of fundamental incompatibilities between ATSC 3.0 and EAS, the A3SA stressed that “this is simply not true. All broadcasters, and A3SA, share Weigel’s commitment to ensuring that EAS messages are reliably delivered to all viewers.2 Weigel’s filing, however, fundamentally mischaracterizes the source of the identified EAS issues, since those failures stem directly from implementation choices made by specific manufacturers – and have nothing to do with ATSC 3.0 or its key aspects including digital rights management (`DRM’) and other content protection features.”
The letter stressed that DRM systems in nearly all ATSC 3.0 capable devices are working as designed. “Every ATSC 3.0 television being manufactured today supports DRM and the millions of televisions and other devices operating today demonstrate that DRM does not impede, limit, or affect the reception of EAS messages,” the letter noted.
The problems, the group added, stem simply from two tested devices. “Weigel’s test results reflect the implementation decisions of the two particular manufacturers who produced the devices that were tested,” the group said. “They do not establish that DRM, content protection, or any other ATSC 3.0 features interfere with EAS delivery.”
In the case of the other box, “the BitRouter ZapperBox issue identified by Weigel is a device-configuration matter, not indicative of a DRM or ATSC 3.0 problem,” the group said. “ZapperBox is an outlier among A3SA-enabled set-top devices because, in its current implementation, it requires an initial Internet connection to obtain an over-the-top (`OTT') license needed to process encrypted content on a channel. That choice reflects ZapperBox’s connected-device use case: it is a higher-end set-top product, with DVR capabilities, intended for consumers who typically use it in an Internet-connected environment, where it operates as intended. However, the Internet connection is not a permanent requirement. Once the OTT license is obtained, the license persists and continues to function without an Internet connection. The box can then be disconnected from the Internet and will continue to operate, including decrypting video and audio and displaying EAS messages embedded in the broadcast stream. Weigel’s presentation again takes a connected-use device at a specific pre-license stage, removes the connectivity needed for that initial license acquisition, and then treats the result as evidence of a DRM problem. That characterization is false.”
The letter also complained that “Weigel’s presentation creates the false impression that Internet connectivity is a systemic requirement for ATSC 3.0 content protection. The opposite is true. A3SA specifically designed and engineered its content protection solution for OTA broadcast transmissions without ever needing an Internet connection. All devices that support the A3SA framework are provisioned with factory installed licenses which facilitates the “never-connected” to the Internet mode of operation. There are millions of devices sold into the ATSC 3.0 ecosystem – including all set-top boxes from manufacturers that support the A3SA content protection framework such as ZapperBox, Zinwell, ADTH, Shift2Stream, and GT Media, as well as every ATSC 3.0 television being manufactured today – operate with the same capability with factory installed licenses and the vast majority of those devices operate today without ever requiring an Internet connection.”
“As A3SA stated in its February 18, 2026 Reply Comments in this proceeding – and as Weigel’s own presentation acknowledges – more than 18 million devices can access all NextGen TV content, including EAS, whether encrypted or not, without needing an Internet connection or subscription,” the letter concluded. “Blaming ATSC 3.0 content protection for a device-specific implementation failure is akin to blaming a television broadcast station because its HDTV signal cannot be received on an SD-only television. The broadcaster’s signal is working; the standard is working; the missing capability is in the receiver. So too here: the issue is not ATSC 3.0 or the content protection framework, but the design choices made by particular device manufacturers.”
The full letter can be read here.
Weigel’s filing can be found here and the NAB’s comments on this issue are available here.
