Monty Tayloe

LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 may have been the belle of the ball at the NAB Show (see 1604200051), but some large broadcasters and networks, most notably CBS, had reservations about the new standard and NAB's support of a petition for FCC authorization of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604130065), broadcasters, attorneys and other industry officials said in interviews last week. Those misgivings are believed to stem from the uncertainty of the undertaking, the expense and its possible effects on the network/affiliate dynamic, they said. They are part of the reasoning behind ATSC 3.0's voluntary transition plan, they said.

LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 will be put out for comment before the end of the month, and incentive auction watchers “should expect” that it could take multiple auction stages to complete the auction, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler during Q&A at the NAB Show Wednesday. Broadcasters and broadcast attorneys watching the speech called Wheeler's remarks on the new standard (see 1604180058) encouraging. Attendees interpreted his comments on the auction many different ways, from being a signal that a high clearing target is likely, to a warning to manage expectations. “This is not a one and done activity,” Wheeler said of the auction. "We will do it again and again for as long as it takes for the market to work."

LAS VEGAS -- The FCC should hold a summit of incentive auction stakeholders to plan the repacking process, Commissioner Ajit Pai said Monday at one of several panels on the incentive auction at the NAB Show 2016. Pai praised the idea as a way to resolve the repacking process, which wireless and broadcast industry panelists agreed is extremely complex. “We can't embrace an every-broadcaster-for-itself policy in the repacking,” Pai said. Panelists from NAB and CTA also said Monday that the repacking is complex, speaking about the effects on the industry if the auction were to enter into a second stage after failing to meet its initial clearing target. Since the FCC is required to choose the highest amount of spectrum it believes it can get as a clearing target, some believe that a second stage “will probably happen,” Wilkinson Barker attorney Jonathan Cohen said.

LAS VEGAS -- Third-party set-top boxes having the capacity to strip out or overlay the advertising in a pay-TV content stream with new, different ads shouldn't concern opponents of the FCC's set-top box proposal because market forces will prevent abuse, TiVo Chief Technology Officer Joseph Weber said Monday during a contentious panel at the NAB Show.

LAS VEGAS -- The FCC issued a declaratory ruling affirming that expenses incurred by broadcasters during and before the incentive auction related to the repacking will be eligible for reimbursement from the $1.75 billion relocation reimbursement fund. The public notice announcing the ruling was posted online during an NAB Show panel of broadcast engineers about the industry's readiness for the repacking. Though panelists said the announcement would help, they also listed many other concerns about the repacking that remain for broadcasters.

LAS VEGAS -- NAB doesn't expect opposition at the FCC to the joint petition for approval of the ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcasting standard, NAB CEO Gordon Smith told us at the NAB Show after his keynote Monday. "We have no reason to believe they are opposed in any way." The FCC "has a choice before it," Smith said during the speech, praising the standard's voluntary transition plan. "It is our job as your association to make sure you have choices for the future," Smith told the NAB Show crowd. "It is not our job to make those choices."

An executive branch filing in support of the FCC set-top box proceeding (see 1604150003) is largely laudatory of the commission's proposal but also questions aspects of the agency's plans on privacy and copyright, which have also been a focus of the proposal's opponents. “The Commission should take steps to ensure that expansion of competition in navigation devices does not diminish existing privacy protections,” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in the filing. Privacy and copyright concerns were the focus of a joint NCTA/MPAA news briefing denouncing the FCC plan last week (see 1604130052), which itself followed experts saying that access to consumer data may be the ultimate tech prize in the NPRM approved by a politically split FCC (see 1603080037).

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals told the FCC and several parties challenging ownership rules that they should study in advance of Tuesday's oral argument in Philadelphia the case Public Citizen v. Chao, in which the 3rd Circuit previously ruled against a federal agency for delaying a rulemaking that had been ordered by the court. Prometheus Radio v. FCC (formerly Howard Stirk v. FCC) includes arguments that the FCC ignored the orders of the 3rd Circuit by failing to complete the 2010 quadrennial review or do studies on minority ownership (see 1511240060). The 3rd Circuit's raising of the Public Citizen case shortly before oral argument is seen as a bad omen for the FCC, numerous attorneys familiar with the case told us. The FCC has twice lost similar cases 2-1 against some of the same plaintiffs in front of the same panel of judges they will see Tuesday.

The FCC is considered likely to grant a petition from broadcasters and tech companies to authorize the physical layer of the next generation ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard (see 1404090027), broadcast attorneys told us Wednesday and Thursday. The gradual, industry-driven transition plan is seen as asking relatively little from the commission, and shouldn't be “a heavy lift,” a broadcast lawyer said. That is in keeping with recent forecasts from ATSC President Mark Richer that broadcasters and tech companies would "take the lead" at the FCC in "a unified approach" that won't be "controversial" (see 1603280043).

Trade groups representing broadcasters, tech companies and others jointly filed a petition for rulemaking Wednesday asking the FCC to allow broadcasters to begin using the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard. “This enhanced digital IP-based standard will create the bedrock for continuing innovation by the television industry for decades to come,” said the petition filed by America's Public Television Stations (APTS), CTA, NAB and a group of broadcasters and electronics companies called the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance, which was officially formed Tuesday (see 1604120069).