Sinclair Chief Financial Officer Chris Ripley told an investor conference that ATSC 3.0 is “on track” to be approved by the FCC at the beginning of next year, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors. Ripley said Sinclair retracted its predictions about political advertising revenue (see 1609210075) due to a “lack of visibility,” Ryvicker said. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's fundraising efforts are late, though Ryvicker said it's possible he could make up for lost time: “It sounds to us like the door is open to maybe meeting the old political Q4 numbers, but again there is no visibility.”

That ATSC 3.0 won’t be backward-compatible with the current DTV system “will create some challenges in meeting the goal of minimizing consumer disruption,” FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly told the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers Friday. “Some of you may already be involved in the development of new equipment for broadcasters or consumers, either to take advantage of the new standard or to convert the programming for viewing on older devices,” he said. “I view the FCC's role in this process as that of a facilitator, not a controller. Hopefully political agendas can be left on the sidelines as creative solutions emerge.” There’s still “a long way to go” before the “entire portfolio of standards that will make up the umbrella ATSC 3.0" will be finalized at ATSC, he said. “No one should underestimate the importance” of elevating ATSC 3.0's physical transmission layer to the status of a final standard (see 1609080061), he said. “But there are still upwards of 20 other components” of ATSC 3.0 that await completion, he said. “It’s not unlike building a new skyscraper. The key is a solid foundation and first couple of floors and then construction can get easier from there. So, everyone should be pleased with where the 3.0 standard is at this point in time, but there is much work ahead, and no one should take their eye off the ball.”

The FCC should define the protected contour for TV stations using ATSC 3.0 just as it does for the current standard, NAB told staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology and the Media Bureau in a meeting Tuesday. “Next Generation TV will have the same interference characteristics as the current television transmission standard, and petitioners have requested no changes to the emission mask or power levels,” said a filing posted Thursday to docket 16-142. “There is no need for the Commission to make any changes to its regulatory processes for applications associated with or affected by the use of the new standard.” The association also continued its recent push to get the agency to issue an NPRM on ATSC 3.0, which CEO Gordon Smith has said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said could come in months (see 1609070065).

Correction: What NAB CEO Gordon Smith said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told him is that the agency would take up ATSC 3.0 once it finished some other ongoing proceedings (see 1609130043), (see 1609070065).

The FCC should “promptly” begin a rulemaking on approving ATSC 3.0, said NAB officials and America's Public Television Stations CEO Patrick Butler in meetings with aides to all regular FCC commissioners Thursday, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 16-142. “Broadcasters representing hundreds of stations support Commission approval of broadcasters’ voluntary use of the new standard.” In comments on a petition requesting approval for the new standard, NAB and numerous broadcast filers asked for the NPRM to be issued in October.

Cadence Design Systems claims it has the industry’s first SoC designs approved for use with Dolby AC-4 decoders, the chipmaker said in a Monday announcement. AC-4 decoders will be “critical” for next-generation TV and set-top applications, including those for ATSC 3.0, the company said. In a separate announcement Monday, Cadence also said it's offering immediate availability of an MPEG-H audio decoder for ATSC 3.0 and other global next-gen broadcast systems. MPEG-H Audio “is a future broadcast standard and is expected to be one of the key audio technologies adopted worldwide for new TVs,” Cadence said. Working in “close collaboration” with Fraunhofer, a developer of MPEG-H with Qualcomm and Technicolor, Cadence is first to market with an implementation for a “licensable” MPEG-H digital signal processor, it said. ATSC by year-end “likely” will recommend adoption of AC-4 as the ATSC 3.0 audio codec for North America and MPEG-H for South Korea, ATSC officials told us at the NAB Show (see 1604180080).

ATSC members, in balloting completed Wednesday, approved elevating ATSC 3.0's physical layer transmission system (document A/322) to the status of a final standard, ATSC said in a Thursday announcement. “While other ingredients of the ATSC 3.0 standard are still in the final stages of standardization, the approval of the over-the-air transmission system is a foundation for the future,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. ATSC 3.0's framers are “delivering” on the timetable published “early in the process” to finish work on the “complete” ATSC 3.0 standard by the first quarter of 2017, Richer said Thursday in the September issue of The Standard, ATSC’s monthly newsletter. But “as we saw with ATSC 1.0, broadcasting standards are never totally done,” he said. “Great standards continue to evolve with enhancements, modifications and adjustments. Standards development is an ongoing organic process that continues, and the ATSC board already is looking beyond ATSC 3.0.”

The FCC could take up a proceeding on approving ATSC 3.0 before the end of 2016, NAB CEO Gordon Smith said at NAB's Broadcast Innovations event Wednesday. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told Smith the new standard would become a priority for the commission after "a few things" are taken off the FCC's agenda, Smith said. If a new standard is approved in 2016, broadcasters could be transmitting in the new standard by summer 2017, Smith said. ATSC 3.0 would allow broadcasters to offer better visuals and audio, such as UltraHD, said NBCUniversal Senior Vice President-Advanced Technology Glenn Reitmeier on a panel. Cable and satellite providers don't require regulatory approval to offer services like UltraHD, so it's important for broadcasters to have the new standard approved, Reitmeier said.

ATSC 3.0 will allow broadcasters to “datacast," which will create opportunities for public TV stations, said America's Public Television Stations in an ex parte filing posted Thursday in FCC docket 16-142. “Next Gen datacasting will allow Public Television to deliver encrypted and targetable IP data, including video and other large files, and thereby provide a wireless IP delivery network that is natively multicast and not subject to congestion or delay, like the television signals carrying it,” APTS said. “Public Television is eager to embrace the non-broadcast datacasting opportunities that Next Gen presents to enhance the public services we offer.” ATSC 3.0 would allow noncommercial stations to support FirstNet and first responders, send educational materials to schools, and perform a “C-SPAN-like” service for state legislative proceedings, the association said. The service also could present a nonbroadcast revenue opportunity for public stations by allowing them to provide datacast services to local businesses, it said.

That the Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers (AFCCE) recently backed speedy FCC approval of the ATSC 3.0 transmission system is further evidence the next-generation broadcast standard will “move through this regulatory process at a fairly quick pace,” said Sinclair CEO David Smith on a Wednesday earnings call. AFCCE “finds no technical reason” to delay authorization of the ATSC 3.0 transmission standard and so urges the FCC “to take the requisite actions necessary for expedited consideration,” it told the commission in July 19 comments. Smith also thinks ATSC 3.0 “over time” will be adopted as “a global standard,” following its endorsement by South Korea, he said. “The long-term consequences of that as a function of our intellectual property is going to be very interesting to watch,” he said.