WASHINGTON—In a joint filing with the Federal Communications Commission, America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) and PBS highlighted the importance of NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0 for the future of public broadcasting but asked the regulator not to set a firm date for cutting of ATSC 1.0 broadcasts.
The NAB, Pearl TV, state broadcast associations and large commercial broadcasters have been pushing for a firm sunset to ATSC 1.0 signals.
In a separate filing with the FCC, Pearl TV, which is backed by major commercial station groups, argued that "a clear deadline is the only way to align incentives across broadcasters, manufacturers, and retailers. Threshold-based approaches would replicate the early confusion of the DTV transition and prolong uncertainty. A firm date provides the predictability necessary for investment and consumer clarity."
APTS and PBS, who referred to themselves as PTV in the filing, said PTV “supports the Commission’s proposal to facilitate and accelerate the ongoing voluntary transition to NextGen TV by removing regulatory hurdles and providing broadcasters with maximum flexibility for the transition. These proposed changes will empower all local stations, including local public television stations, to deploy ATSC 3.0 at their discretion and at the appropriate pace to best serve the unique needs of their local communities and local audiences.”
The filing stressed that PTV supports enabling local stations to best meet viewers’ needs by eliminating regulatory barriers and providing maximum flexibility for local station decision-making.
“PTV agrees with the Commission that the continued permissive, flexible deployment of ATSC 3.0 by local broadcasters will best serve the public interest," the Jan. 20 filing noted. "The FCC can best support television stations, and the viewers they serve, with the transition to ATSC 3.0 by providing local stations with maximum flexibility to make their own decisions about ATSC 3.0 deployment” and by adopting “a flexible (and local) grassroots approach (rather than a top-down regulatory approach)”
As part of that the PTV filing supports the FCC proposals to eliminate the substantially similar and simulcast regulations.
But the filing also opposed a hard cutoff date. “PTV believes it is premature for the FCC to establish either a date certain or specific market conditions for sunsetting ATSC 1.0 service at this time; rather, any sunsetting of ATSC 1.0 service should be market-led for now (as with the rest of the transition), so that local stations continue to have maximum flexibility to serve their communities.”
The full filing can be found here.
[This article is part TV Tech’s ongoing coverage of the FCC and NextGen TV; articles about comments and filings from other companies and associations with different perspectives on these issues can be found here and here.]
