Broadcast CEOs Optimistic About Future of TV Initiative

“There are things the FCC can do to grease the skids here, and I’m optimistic now with this announcement they’ll get done,” said Sinclair Broadcast CEO Chris Ripley on a CEO panel. Other than the 2017 order authorizing the standard, Monday’s task force announcement from Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel “was the most important thing the FCC has ever said about Next-Gen TV,” said NAB Senior Vice President-Technology Lynn Claudy on a panel on 3.0 devices.

Though ATSC 3.0 signals cover 60% of the country, the remaining markets are the most difficult to transition, Ripley said. “We need the push from the FCC to finish off this transition." The agency can help broadcasters and consumers migrate to the new technology similar to the way it “shepherded” the cellular industry from 4G to 5G, said Gray Television CEO Pat LaPlatney. The announcement is “the first step to building a plan so that nobody is disenfranchised” by losing their TV signal, said E.W. Scripps CEO Adam Symson.

It’s too early to pass judgment on whether the Future of TV Initiative’s combination of industry, consumer and public interest stakeholders is the best model to facilitate the transition, Ripley said: “We asked for this task force, and we’re very happy the FCC decided to move forward.”

NAB’s original pitch for the 3.0 task force specifically cited the Incentive Auction Task Force, a body composed of FCC staffers from multiple bureaus. However, the few details released about the new task force make it sound closer to an FCC advisory committee, composed of representatives from a variety of stakeholders that could have opposing goals. Sony Director-Technical Standards Adam Goldberg, who was on the ultimately unsuccessful FCC Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee, said Tuesday he doesn’t believe the Future of TV Initiative will be similar. “There’s a difference between trying to convince an industry segment to do something they don’t see an advantage in” and facilitating a transition that's widely supported by broadcasters, Goldberg said. The initiative is a “formal mechanism” for working with a variety of interests and reaching “reasonable concessions” Claudy said: “Everyone is not going to get what they want.”

The industry is already in the process of addressing FCC concerns about the availability of affordable ATSC 3.0 converter dongles for 1.0 receivers, Ripley said. Devices are “coming to the market this year” and should be priced in the $40-$50 range, he said.

ATSC 3.0 datacasting is still nascent but could start generating revenue for broadcasters in 2024, Ripley said. The early money-making ventures for datacasting will likely involve applications for precision GPS, such as sending drones along utility pipelines, Ripley said.

Sinclair announced this week it will create a platform to be a clearinghouse for national ATSC 3.0 data distribution. Spectrum providers such as BitPath will be able to use the platform “to monetize their spectrum in a way that is not currently possible in today’s decentralized and unconnected TV broadcast architecture,” said Sinclair’s news release.

Another anticipated datacasting use, transmitting software updates to cars, will likely need broader adoption to be viable, Symson said. Projections on the potential revenue from datacasting eclipsing retransmission consent were based on broadcast spectrum capacity, which is only the supply side of the equation, he cautioned. “There is a demand side that also has to be really studied,” he said. Immersive audio and 4K picture are “table stakes,” not enough on their own to entice consumers to 3.0, said Symson.