Univision became the third member of the spectrum aggregation consortium established by Nexstar and Sinclair earlier this year, the two founders announced. The consortium is intended to allow the broadcasters to better pool resources such as wireless spectrum stemming from ATSC 3.0 and advertising capacity to better compete, broadcast executives connected to the arrangement said. The consortium promotes the new TV standard and “monetization opportunities” in “spectrum utilization, virtual MVPD platforms, multicast channels, automotive applications, single frequency networks and wireless data applications,” the release said. "Our collaborative efforts to advance the promotion of spectrum utilization, innovation and monetization,” said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook. This "brings Spanish language broadcasters into the mix which will be able to benefit from the many 3.0 products and services that are on the horizon,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley.

The “biggest thing” about ATSC 3.0 from the Sony Electronics “perspective” is that it’s “a system designed to last, to evolve and endure,” Paul Hearty, vice president-technology standards, told last week’s ATSC conference in Washington. “When we did ATSC 1.0, I think it took us nine very painful years,” said Hearty. ATSC 3.0 “has taken us six and a bit,” he said. “But 3.1, maybe it will be only a year or six months or eight months. So we’re on the track of a system that we’re not going to have to change out in its entirety in 10 to 15 to 20 years. That’s a big thing, I think, for the consumer electronics industry, to be able to build for many, many years against the same core system.” The HTML5 “ship” that’s at ATSC 3.0's IP core also “has sailed into our products, and we’re all supporting it,” Hearty said of the prevalence of smart TVs in the consumer tech market. “One of the challenges we’re going to have to face is that we’re got to figure out how we’re going to accommodate the runtime platform” in ATSC 3.0 “with the platforms that we already have in our devices,” he said. “There’s some work that needs to be done to harmonize, for example, our Android platform with the runtime platform that’s coming out of S34,” he said of the specialist group with ATSC that’s working on runtime standards. “Obviously, we’ve been making a lot of investment in time and expertise in helping develop that specification, but there’s still work to be done, as we get S34 completed, to get it fully integrated” into the platforms CE companies are already using, he said.

Sinclair’s One Media appeared in comments in the FCC ATSC 3.0 rulemaking to dip a toe in the water of backing tuner mandates, though it stopped well short of asking the commission to impose them. “The capabilities enabled by ATSC 3.0 are such that the marketplace will demand inclusion of those capabilities in receive devices,” One Media commented Tuesday in docket 16-142. “Commission support for inclusion of ATSC 3.0 tuners in the devices consumers use to watch television today would greatly facilitate and expedite the introduction and use of innovative new services.” Though migration to ATSC 3.0 “is a voluntary, optional deployment and it may be premature for the Commission to consider changes to the television tuner mandate adopted pursuant to the All Channel Receiver Act, to the extent that there is a marketplace failure or critical need to facilitate emergency warnings/information, the Commission can revisit the need to require 3.0 reception capacity in all receive devices,” said a footnote. Then-CEO David Smith pooh-poohed the tuner mandate when asked about it at November’s NAB Show New York (see 1611100032). “We live in a market-driven world,” said Smith, now executive chairman. “We’re sophisticated enough as marketers and delivery guys to figure out how to get the consumer to want our product,” without the need for a government-mandated ATSC 3.0 tuner requirement, he said then. Sinclair hasn't asked "in the course of this part of the proceeding for a tuner mandate," Mark Aitken, vice president-advanced technology, told us Thursday. "The light touch of government is the course that's being asked for," Aitken said. "This is a voluntary migration, a voluntary implementation, and so we see no reason for a mandate. But look, there are a lot of areas that are not addressed or are lightly addressed because one does not know how the market is going to proceed." The issue of tuner mandates "is only obliquely touched upon" in the comments "because of the nature of what's being asked for on the whole," said Aitken. ATSC 3.0 petitioners CTA, NAB, America’s Public TV Stations and the AWARN Alliance used their joint comments in the FCC rulemaking to argue against tuner mandates as "counterproductive and unnecessary.” (see 1705090056)

The FCC could “re-scope” the licenses of broadcasters involved in ATSC 3.0 simulcasting instead of issuing separate licenses, NAB said in a meeting with acting Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey and Media Bureau staff April 12, according to an ex parte filing at the commission. The re-scoped license would include a broadcaster’s transmissions on a simulcast partner’s spectrum while excluding the simulcasting partner’s transmissions on the first broadcaster’s spectrum, NAB said. “An approach along these lines could provide both certainty and flexibility,” NAB said.

As the suite of ATSC 3.0 standards “nears completion,” the next-generation broadcast system will take center stage on the NAB Show exhibit floor, where “multiple companies will demonstrate breakthrough ATSC 3.0 hardware and software,” ATSC said in a Thursday announcement. Highlights will include a BBC R&D demonstration of the hybrid log-gamma high dynamic range format developed with NHK of Japan. On the show floor, BBC will showcase HLG’s picture quality “in the context” of its inclusion in the ATSC A/341 video document and the ITU’s BT.2100 recommendation, ATSC said. BBC also will highlight the benefits of wide color gamut and how HDR and wide color can be interoperable with standard dynamic range BT.709 color, it said. In another NAB Show highlight, Dolby Labs “will offer a hands-on demonstration of live AC-4 encoding and decoding,” as specified in the A/342 ATSC 3.0 audio document, ATSC said. “Visitors will be able to adjust encoding and decoding parameters, watch the system automatically adapt, and hear the results in real time,” it said. “Dolby experts will be on hand to answer questions regarding Dolby Atmos, legacy and new workflows, and deployment of AC-4 and ATSC 3.0.” The NAB Show exhibit floor opens April 24 at the Las Vegas Convention Center for a four-day run.

Triveni Digital will offer ATSC 3.0 starter kits for low-power TV stations at the April 23 LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition Repack Rally, the company said in a news release: They are "designed to bring broadcasters up to speed with the new broadcast television standard and ecosystem in a real-world environment." The kits include a quality assurance system, ROUTE/MMTP encoder and live source simulator. ”LPTV stations will play a big role in ATSC 3.0," said Triveni Vice President-Sales and Marketing Ralph Bachofen. "Whether an LPTV plans to share frequency as a light house or provide advanced local services, such as hyperlocal ads or emergency alert messaging, ATSC 3.0 will bring new life to broadcast.” Triveni Chief Science Officer Rich Chernock chairs ATSC's Technology Group 3, which is supervising the framing of ATSC 3.0.

There’s a “business upside” to ATSC 3.0 emergency-alerting capabilities, and the AWARN Alliance plans to explore that at an “executive breakfast presentation” April 26 during the NAB Show, the alliance said in a Wednesday announcement. Using ATSC 3.0, AWARN (Advanced Warning and Response Network) is “transforming the alerting landscape as man-made and natural disasters reveal the urgent need for new warning systems,” said the alliance. “AWARN is using the same features that will drive new revenue streams: geo-targeting, personalization, interactivity, deep indoor and mobile reception, and device wake up.”

“NextGen TV Hub” will be the name of an exhibit planned for next month’s NAB Show to showcase ATSC 3.0 “benefits and capabilities,” ATSC said in a Wednesday announcement. A highlight of the exhibit in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center will be beaming Ultra HD programming from KLSV-LD Las Vegas on Nevada's Black Mountain to an LG 4K TV with a built-in ATSC 3.0 tuner, it said. ATSC is teaming with CTA and NAB to sponsor the exhibit, which also will have the support of LG, Pearl TV, Sinclair and others, the announcement said. The NAB Show exhibit floor opens April 24 for a four-day run.

Broadcasters say multichannel video programming distributor carriage of ATSC 3.0 will be voluntary but are insisting on clauses requiring such carriage in retransmission consent negotiations, said the American Television Alliance in a letter to the FCC posted in docket 16-142 Monday. “ATVA’s concerns about the ‘voluntary’ nature of ATSC 3.0 carriage reflect the real-world experiences of ATVA members,” the letter said. “As the Commission considers claims made by the broadcast industry in this rulemaking, we urge it to examine the apparent disconnect between such claims and broadcasters’ actual conduct in negotiations.”

Consumers Union, New America’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge share FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn's concerns about the proposed ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard's impact on the public, representatives of those consumer advocacy groups told her Chief of Staff David Grossman. Will consumers still be able to get HDTV via ATSC 1.0, asked CU, OTI and PK, saying they agree with Clyburn that "broadcasters’ public interest obligations, including the required number of hours of video description and children’s programming, should apply independently to both the ATSC 3.0 transmission and a station’s 1.0 stream." The commissioner made the comments when voting last month on a 3.0 NPRM (see 1702230060). Consumers could benefit from TV outlets broadcasting video content to smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, the advocates said, though they worry stations could try to use leverage over retransmission consent "to coerce" pay-TV providers to carry 3.0 programming. Broadcasters mustn't be allowed to use 3.0 to "foreclose open and unlicensed public access to the vacant TV band spectrum that is not licensed and in use for free over-the-air local broadcast content," said CU, OTI and PK. Don't "allow private licensees to foreclose the spectrum commons by demanding increased restrictions on TV White Space devices to purportedly protect non-free ancillary or ATSC 3.0 data services," the three said in a filing posted Friday in docket 16-142. NAB didn't comment Friday. The association has said the transition to 3.0 would be voluntary and offer many benefits.