The FCC should exempt noncommercial educational TV stations from ATSC 3.0 simulcasting requirements, said PBS in a meeting Thursday with Commissioner Brendan Carr, recounted a filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. “Public television stations will ensure the continuity of viewer access throughout the transition regardless of whether the Commission imposes a regulatory mandate.” Letting stations make their own choices about how to continue providing service during the transition would be preferable, PBS said. “The simulcast mandate unnecessarily constrains the ability of public television stations to best serve local community needs, and the mandate would in fact preclude many public stations from bringing the educational benefits of the new standard.” The public TV network said the FCC should acknowledge the amount of the repacking shortfall and issue a follow-up allocation of reimbursement money from the $1.75 billion repacking reimbursement fund.

LG is the first TV maker to complete “initial field tests” of the Verance Aspect audio watermark for ATSC 3.0, said Verance in a Wednesday announcement. The tests were conducted using the current 1.0 standard in collaboration with Fox and NBC in the Phoenix market, Verance said. That's where broadcast consortium Pearl TV announced plans mid-November for a 3.0 “model market” involving 10 TV stations to “help foster industry consensus and drive ecosystem development” (see 1711140053).

Comments on the ATSC 3.0 Further NPRM are due Feb. 20, the FCC Media Bureau said in a public notice Thursday. Replies are due March 20. The FNPRM seeks comment on possible exceptions and waivers to the new standard’s simulcasting requirement, on broadcasters using vacant channels in the broadcast band during the transition, and tentatively concludes that simulcasting shouldn’t affect a station’s significantly viewed status. The actual ATSC 3.0 order hasn’t yet been published in the Federal Register, and the agency will issue a PN when it is, the bureau said.

MediaTek is the first SoC supplier to finish “evaluation tests” of Verance’s Aspect audio watermarking for ATSC 3.0, the companies announced. At CES, they'll do “joint demonstrations” of MediaTek's DTV platforms integrated with the Aspect watermark, they said Tuesday. The FCC's Nov. 16 vote authorizing 3.0's voluntary deployment (see 1711160060) “paves the way for taking broadcasting to the next level,” they said. Verance is developing “go-to-market” partnerships for Aspect with consumer electronics companies and chipmakers, they said. ATSC’s "S33" specialist group on management and protocols picked Verance’s audio watermarking technology for 3.0 nearly three years ago (see 1504030030). It’s in the A/334 document on “audio watermark emission,” which ATSC approved as a final 3.0 standard in September 2016.

Trilithic joined the Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance, AWARN said Tuesday. “Trilithic has deep experience with alerting technology using the Common Alerting Protocol across diverse platforms,” said Executive Director John Lawson. The alliance also includes NAB, CTA and LG. “In 2018, we will work to develop a standards-based, end-to-end beta solution for advanced alerting,” Lawson said.

Sinclair disagrees with Sen. Claire McCaskill's, D-Mo., call for the FCC to bar it from owning two of the top-four TV stations in St. Louis as a condition of its proposed buy of Tribune, said Vice President-News Scott Livingston in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. McCaskill sought the condition amid concerns about Sinclair taking ownership of Tribune's Fox affiliate KTVI while retaining ownership of ABC affiliate KDNL-TV. Sinclair has shown a “stunning disregard for local news” via KDNL, McCaskill said in a letter to Pai. KDNL's lack of local news “is the exception, not the norm,” for Sinclair, Livingston said: “Our inability to broadcast traditional local news in St. Louis is a result of numerous factors,” including the need to cut costs. The station at times “aired newscasts produced by another station in St. Louis” and later “launched a news talk show,” he said. “If we are allowed to purchase Tribune’s television stations in St. Louis, we plan to begin producing and broadcasting traditional local news programming on KDNL,” Livingston said. “This is not something that we believe would take place if KDNL were to remain separately owned, whether by Sinclair or another broadcast company.”

Reviewing broadcaster requests to own top-four duopolies on a case-by-case basis better reflects the media market and provides a clearer procedure than the general waiver process, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a letter last month and recently released to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., declining to postpone approval of the media ownership reconsideration order (see 1711160054) and ATSC 3.0 (see 1711160060). Both items were approved 3-2 at commissioners' November meeting. Eshoo’s request for delay was denied because both items serve the public interest, Pai said. He defended provisions in the 3.0 order that sunset the requirement that 1.0 simulcasts be substantially similar to broadcaster's 3.0 feeds and that low-power TV stations are exempt from simulcasting requirements. LPTV stations would have a hard time finding simulcast partners, so ending the substantially similar provision after five years won’t end broadcaster obligations to simulcast, Pai said. “The Commission will decide in a future proceeding whether and, if so, when it would be appropriate for broadcasters to stop simulcasting in ATSC 1.0.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate joined an advisory committee for the Advanced Warning and Response Network, the AWARN Alliance said Wednesday. AWARN said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Center of Missing and Exploited Children, National Weather Service and APCO remain on the committee. DHS will “leverage its social science and other expertise to help us design the most effective warning messages,” said alliance Executive Director John Lawson. The group will begin developing “an end-to-end AWARN technical solution” with input from the panel in 2018; a beta version is planned for 2019, it said.

The American Cable Association will petition for reconsideration of the ATSC 3.0 order if broadcasters put undue pressure on small cable operators to carry the standard, ACA said in docket 16-142, posted Tuesday. Such petitions can be submitted within 30 days of the order's publication in the Federal Register, and many ACA members will be negotiating retransmission consent deals in the next month, the group said. It cited Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's warning at commissioners' November meeting he would be watching for examples of possible violations of good-faith rules for 3.0 carriage. "Should broadcasters insist on ATSC 3.0 carriage in their negotiations with ACA members, the 'concrete examples' of which Commissioner O'Rielly spoke may become available sooner rather than later," ACA said. "We hope, however, that broadcasters will show some measure of restraint."

“Enhanced” public safety benefits will abound with ATSC 3.0, top America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) officials told FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in Monday meetings, said an ex parte letter posted Wednesday in docket 16-142. The public safety services that APTS stations provide now to first responders, and in alert and warning, “will increase and expand” with 3.0, said the officials, including CEO Patrick Butler and Chief Operating Officer Lonna Thompson. “ATSC 3.0 will allow the ability to ‘wake up’ receiver devices when emergency alerts are transmitted overnight and will improve accessibility measures” for hearing- and visually-impaired viewers, they said. The FCC voted Nov. 16 to authorize the voluntary deployment of 3.0 over the dissents of Rosenworcel and her fellow Democrat Mignon Clyburn (see 1711160060). There’s “a lot to be excited” about with 3.0, including Ultra HD picture quality, immersive audio, advanced emergency alerts and “innovative interactive services,” said Rosenworcel in her Nov. 16 dissenting statement. “But what we do today is rush this standard to market with an ugly disregard for the consumer consequences.” The Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance hopes by 2019 to have in place a “beta solution” for 3.0-capable emergency alerts, said alliance Executive Director John Lawson (see 1711200023). APTS and the AWARN Alliance were petitioners with CTA and NAB in April 2016 to ask the FCC to launch the 3.0 rulemaking (see 1604130065).