As 2026 began, comments began arriving at the FCC in response to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would make as much as 180 MHz of the Upper C-band available for terrestrial wireless services provider. This would transpire via an auction to be held in 2027. What does this mean for broadcasters?
A lot, it seems, as a host of broadcast technology companies at the 2026 NAB Show in April shared with visitors tales of great change for those reliant on satellite-delivered content. Yet, it is a story that has received scant coverage in the mainstream press, and scattered coverage in even the most technical and scientific of industry trade publications. The NAB is sparring with the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) offer the amount of spectrum that should be auctioned. Companies including Skyview Networks are preparing for the loss of upper C-band spectrum already.
What does a broadcast media operation do? First, one must understand what a November 20, 2025, announcement from the Commission means to Radio and TV. And, it requires an understanding of just how the leadership of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr believes the proposed auction is “a critical step toward releasing a large swath of mid-band spectrum for America’s innovators.”
Achieving this would require the Commission to complete a system of competitive bidding for at least 100 MHz in the Upper C-band no later than July 2027. The NAB wants 100 MHz to be the absolute limit, as going beyond that amount would “jeopardize broadcast distribution, increase systemic risk, and undermine public-interest services,” the association told the FCC in reply comments. The CTIA believes the full amount of Upper C-band should be auctioned, allowing the U.S. to keep pace with wireless data needs.
PREVENTING MAJOR HEADACHES
In the weeks heading up to the 2026 NAB Show, companies invested in broadcast station distribution began a full-court press to court U.S. operators with ways to avoid a potential broadcast content supply nightmare. By the time the mid-April conference in Las Vegas began, video-focused Synamedia was armed with a new version of its Quortex PowerVu product that uses industry standards and edge processing “to transform video distribution to broadcast stations via an IP-native, software-based architecture.”
Eliminating on-premises infrastructure is at the heart of the pitch, and addressing potential operational and commercial challenges involved in transitioning to a new distribution model included suggestions from Synamedia that two hybrid alternatives, Satellite Ku-band and IP, and an IP-first model using dual path IP connectivity across fiber, 5G and LEO, be considered.
Other companies, including Appear, are advocating a shift to IP in mobile production and software-based workflows. For LTN, the FCC’s C-Band transition is gathering pace ahead of the July 4, 2027, deadline. “If C-Band capacity disappears for broadcast use, the debate between all-IP distribution and alternative satellite options such as Ku-Band is quickly becoming a major industry topic,” LTN believes, as company co-founder Malik Khan has been working closely with the FCC and broadcasters on migration paths to IP. These conversations include big multimedia groups such as TelevisaUnivision.
With a global transmission network fueled by IP, LTN’s key desire is to ensure broadcasters that it is “replicating reliability,” and that there is no single point of failure for those reliant on live feeds — in particular for professional sports play-by-play. As companies such as The E.W. Scripps Co. and Gray Media continue to invest in sports rights agreements for their broadcast TV channels, a C-Band Spectrum auction brings critical changes to programming delivery front and center. At the NAB Show, LTN Sr. VP/Head of Global Products Rick Young devoted the bulk of his time to demonstrating how the shift away from satellite delivery would bring distribution unification, along with ad insertion technology that makes IP distribution “more than just a transplant network.”
That view is shared with that of Caretta Research, which produced a report in partnership with NAB Show attendee Zixi that explains how live sports necessitates the shift away from satellite transponders and private fiber circuits. “IP delivery is fundamentally changing the economics and flexibility of live video distribution,” said Robert Ambrose, Caretta Research CEO. “Broadcasters are moving away from fixed satellite and fiber infrastructure toward software-defined workflows that allow them to scale production, reach new distribution partners and respond much more quickly to changing audience demand.”
Ambrose points to the National Hockey League and UK-based global broadcaster Sky as already using IP contribution feeds and cloud-based master control rooms to expand coverage, deliver additional camera angles, and produce highlights and streaming feeds.
Zixi CEO Marc Aldrich notes, “Broadcasters are moving beyond simply replacing satellite circuits with IP transport They are rebuilding live operations around flexible, cloud-based workflows that allow them to scale events, reach new distribution partners and maintain broadcast-grade reliability across global networks.”
The next phase of C-Band transition led USSI Global to test alternatives to C-Band media transport and distribution in a newly christened Media Transport Solutions Lab in its Melbourne, Fla., headquarters. It also brought Skyview into the fold. With a pledge to modernize distribution, Cirocast is eyed by Skyview as a product with growth potential and new client adoption. So does the NAB — the cloud-native broadcast-grade audio distribution platform earned an NAB Show Product of the Year 2026 award, selected by a panel of industry experts across 16 categories.
Skyview Networks has already gained early traction, it says, bringing initial clients onto the early implementation of the Cirocast platform as it continues to roll out its feature set, including individualized affiliate feeds and expanded monetization capabilities. For Skyview, “These early deployments reflect the impending need of audio networks in the face of C-Band regulation to modernize to cloud-based distribution solutions that offer greater flexibility without sacrificing delivery performance.”
