PBS and the nation’s leading advocacy group inside the Beltway for public television stations have come together to urge the FCC to adopt “a locally driven transition” to the new ATSC 3.0 digital television standard, leaving it to “local broadcaster decision-making” rather than a Congressional or Commission mandated change date from the current ATSC 1.0 broadcast signal.
PBS and America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) offered the statement and elaborated on its reasoning in comments filed in the FCC’s ECFS in response to GN Docket No. 16-142, which sees the Carr Commission review the shift of television broadcasters to the digital broadcast standard that fuels NEXTGEN TV, as well as the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) being championed by the National Association of Broadcasters.
To be clear, PBS and APTS applaud the Commission for their leadership on ATSC 3.0 and the future of broadcasting. And, the two groups support 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.
The key words in that statement are voluntary and flexibility, and serve as a basis for the deployment of ATSC 3.0 at the local station owner’s discretion “and at the appropriate pace to best serve the unique needs of their local communities and local audiences.”
With federal funding to public media gutted by Republicans on Capitol Hill who voted to claw back pre-authorized funds designated to PBS and NPR and no further dollars allocated, these are fiscally fraught times for non-commercial educational stations. With pleas designed to keep the lights on and mics lit, dollars needed to pay for the shift to ATSC 3.0 may even be scarcer today.
This sets up a potential catastrophe some may call a conspiracy: choking PBS funding so that it cannot possibly shift to ATSC 3.0 by a particular date in areas where donor dollars are few, silencing public media and its perceived liberally biased news and viewpoints for good.
That’s not the focus of the comments from APTS or PBS, however. Rather, they point to how the FCC’s inquiry and desire for input on ATSC 3.0 transition brings “a host of important technical and policy questions.”
At present, more than 40 local public television stations across the country have deployed ATSC 3.0 in various capacities, including through innovative collaborations with other
local commercial and noncommercial stations in their communities and, in a few cases, on low-power facilities within their full power station contours.
PBS and APTS note that they are aware “of many other public television stations that have contemplated ATSC 3.0 deployments in the past eight years, but were unable to proceed at this time due to regulatory, capacity, or financial constraints associated with simulcasting.”
Meanwhile, the groups support the elimination of the “substantially similar” requirement to assist broadcasters that need flexibility to initiate or continue their ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 simulcasting. At the same time, they support the Commission’s proposal to eliminate the ATSC 1.0 simulcasting requirement for stations that wish to transition (or have already transitioned) their facilities to ATSC 3.0 service.
To view the comments in full from PBS and APTS, please click here.
