E.W. Scripps expects the FCC to “advance” an ATSC 3.0 NPRM in Q1, “setting the stage for early investment and development” of ATSC 3.0 products and services “starting early next year,” Brian Lawlor, senior vice president-broadcast, told a UBS investor conference Tuesday. That Scripps thinks the FCC will issue its ATSC 3.0 NPRM not by year-end but in early 2017 is consistent with a recent forecast from NAB Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny at the NAB Show New York (see 1611100032). Scripps “remains probably one of the biggest proponents of the opportunities associated with ATSC 3.0,” Lawlor said. “We believe this new standard provides the foundation of a modern consumer experience and also sets the stage for things like targeted advertising and several other new business opportunities.” Lawlor thinks the industry is “in the third or fourth inning” in the progress it’s making on ATSC 3.0, he said in Q&A. “It will be important to watch over the next year or so, sort of, how that continues to march towards its destination of full commercial deployment.”

The proposed transition to ATSC 3.0 isn't as voluntary as broadcasters claim, said the American Television Alliance in a meeting Wednesday with FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and his staff. The FCC's next step on ATSC 3.0 should be a notice of inquiry rather than NPRM, said ATVA, represented at the meeting by officials from AT&T, Charter Communications, Dish Network and the American Cable Association. Requiring MVPDs and customers to buy new equipment to receive ATSC 3.0 signals isn't voluntary, the ATVA said. The proposal would include negotiations over carrying ATSC 3.0 signals in retransmission consent negotiations, which MVPDs don't necessarily enter into on a voluntary basis, ATVA said. “Any station group with sufficient leverage to compel carriage of unwanted programming or to raise consumer prices by 40 percent per year possesses sufficient leverage to compel carriage of ATSC 3.0 signals as well.” An NOI would give the FCC time to study the proposal more in depth, the pay-TV group said in docket 16-142. “The Commission should want to understand whether the proposed transition would allow broadcasters to collect the benefits of the transition (e.g., new, monetizable services) while externalizing much of the associated costs to others.”

As framers strive to complete work on the suite of standards that will comprise ATSC 3.0, ATSC’s December newsletter, The Standard, ran a sidebar Thursday headlined “How Time Flies,” to mark the 20th anniversary Dec. 24 of FCC adoption in 1996 of the current ATSC 1.0 DTV system. Among the “fun facts from then and now” contained in the sidebar and assembled with the help of CTA: (1) The 2016 TV market was worth $20 billion in factory dollars and encompassed nearly 40 million in unit shipments, compared with 26 million units in 1996 worth $8.7 billion; (2) The average TV screen size of 39 inches in 2016 was 77 percent larger than the 22-inch average in 1996; (3) It took $1,999 to buy a 60-inch analog rear-projection TV in 1996, compared with $999 for a 60-inch digital flat-panel 4K TV in 2016.

Saturday’s Fox Sports TV broadcast of the Big Ten championship game between Wisconsin and Penn State will feature a GoPro camera embedded in the game referee's cap, the companies jointly announced Wednesday. GoPro worked closely with Fox Sports and Big Ten officials to design a referee-worn hat that "delivers a unique POV perspective from the heart of the action," the companies said. The GoPro footage will be shown live during the game and also will be captured as an “isolated stream” on Fox Sports Go, the network’s TV everywhere service, they said.

Broadcast stocks rose 19 percent since Donald Trump's White House win due to predictions of relaxed ownership rules and a faster growing economy under the new administration, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors Wednesday. The lifting or relaxing of the 39 percent of viewers TV ownership cap by the next FCC could trigger “significant” mergers and acquisitions, Ryvicker said, especially from large broadcasters such as Sinclair and Nexstar. Ryvicker said the stock jump also is being caused by “the potential for lower taxes and healthcare costs,” “the potential for the incentive auction to end sooner rather than later now that Chairman [Tom] Wheeler will be leaving by the end of January,” and “the fact that these broadcasters have been much more focused on shoring up their balance sheets in order to return capital to shareholders.” Wheeler hasn't said when he will leave (see 1611170054).

ATSC President Mark Richer remains “cautiously optimistic” the A/341 ATSC 3.0 video document “will go out to ballot” in December for elevation to the status of a proposed standard, “but it’s possible it could be delayed until January,” he emailed us Monday through a spokesman. Technology Group 3, the body within ATSC that’s supervising the framing of ATSC 3.0, made “a great deal of progress” on high dynamic range for the next-generation broadcast standard, Richer told us the week before Thanksgiving (see 1611170058). But the impasse inside TG3 over HDR for ATSC 3.0 has three times delayed the ballot on A/341, most recently when TG3 again extended the candidate standard period on the document for two months to Jan. 30. Under ATSC rules, extending A/341's candidate standard period again was a procedural move “necessary to ensure the document does not revert back to a Working Draft if for some reason the Proposed Standard ballot is not issued” before the Jan. 30 deadline, Richer said. He wouldn't comment whether TG3 has decided on an HDR solution for ATSC 3.0 among the six technology proposals vying for selection (see 1605200031).

The FCC argument that Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia's challenge of the incentive auction rules is relitigating issues settled by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's ruling in the previous Mako case (see 1611150021) is “a subtle but characteristic attempt to confuse the Court,” said Free Access in a reply brief filed Tuesday. Free Access isn't arguing that low-power TV stations should be protected in the auction but that the agency overstepped its authority in constructing the auction as it did, FAB said: “That is what confronts the Court in this landmark auction case: an administrative agency which decides its own unilateral policy, to the disdain of the enabling legislation and statutory limits on its powers, and that then tries to insulate its actions from judicial scrutiny with misdirection, makeweight justiciability objections and mutually inconsistent excuses.” Auction rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act and should be vacated or reversed, FAB said.

The FCC should further relax the main studio rule, said Florida Public Radio in a petition for rulemaking posted online Monday. FPR said the FCC “erroneously holds to two notions: 1) that a meaningful management presence is required for localism, and 2) that stations comply to a one-size-fits-all relating to what is a meaningful management presence.” The rule burdens noncommercial stations and smaller broadcasters with meeting the same staffing requirements as much larger broadcasters, it said. Licensees should be able to determine their staffing needs without an FCC imposed minimum, the filing said. “Time and technology have changed the rationale for the minimum staffing requirements of the main studio,” FPR said. “Public interaction with station ownership is readily available via telephone and internet, all hours, all days.”

CTA is in “the planning phase” for field-testing ATSC 3.0 reception at the experimental facilities owned by WJW Cleveland, Brian Markwalter, CTA's senior vice president-research and standards, emailed us Sunday. “That’s all we can say at this point,” Markwalter said. “CTA is not involved in any other field testing.” An LG, Zenith and GatesAir ex parte filing last week in FCC docket 16-142 (see 1611250030) said CTA and NAB were planning ATSC 3.0 field-testing in “Cleveland, and perhaps elsewhere as well.”

The government agencies that make up “Team Telecom” withdrew their request for deferral on action on a request from Univision and Grupo Televisa to allow Univision to be up to 49 percent foreign owned, said a letter from DOJ in FCC docket 16-217. DOJ, the Department of Homeland Security and DOD “have no objection to the application,” the letter said. In August, the agencies asked the FCC delay the application (see 1608110049).