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.”

Rule changes to streamline foreign ownership regulations will be on the agenda for the FCC Sept. 29 commissioner meeting, Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a blog post Thursday. The item would "extend to broadcast licensees the same streamlined rules and procedures that common carrier wireless licensees use to seek approval of foreign ownership," Wheeler said. The FCC sought comment on changes to make it easier for publicly owned companies to avoid running afoul of foreign ownership rules. Also on the agenda are an item on independent programming and a long-awaited set-top box order (see 1609080085).

SoC supplier Sigma Designs thinks high-dynamic-range adoption is “widespread right now” among its base of TV-maker customers, said Ken Lowe, vice president-strategic marketing, on a Tuesday earnings call. “Everybody that we’re working with right now” on 4K TV design wins “is designing TVs that are HDR-enabled,” Lowe said. For TV makers, HDR’s only sticking point is deciding “which specific version of it” to use, he said. HDR10 has had the widest adoption so far because it has “the lowest costs,” but the hybrid-log-gamma technology espoused by the BBC and NHK “seems to be getting more popular,” Lowe said. Dolby Vision “is there for a lot of people that want the premium and Dolby is going to continue to promote it,” he said. What Sigma has done with its “universal HDR” SoCs is “we’ve mitigated the risk of the making that decision,” Lowe said. Of the TV makers “we deal with,” they can “load our chip and they are covered for all the standards,” he said. “That’s the strongest position we can offer them.”

Tegna will spin off Cars.com into another publicly traded company, amid personnel moves including the parent company's CEO retiring (see 1609070037) and as it considers alternatives for CareerBuilder. Analysts said that could lead to a sale of that job-search site. The spin off, expected in the first half of next year, will position Tegna and Cars.com "to take advantage of differentiated opportunities in the rapidly evolving broadcast and digital landscapes," said the parent in a news release Wednesday. Other owners of CareerBuilder are McClatchy and Tribune Media, and the owners may be reviewing takeover offers for the asset, Noble Financial analyst Michael Kupinski emailed investors. "It sounds like a sale is the least complicated transaction -- given the different ownership structures," wrote Wells Fargo's Marci Ryvicker. "We believe there have been inquiries from interested buyers over the past few years." Tegna stock closed up Wednesday 8.9 percent to $21.81.

It’s “wrong” to pit HDR10 in a “format war” with Dolby Vision for supremacy in high dynamic range, said an Insight Media white paper Monday, explaining the similarities and differences between the two technologies. Think of HDR10 as a “subset” of Dolby Vision, said the paper from a firm with clients in the broadcast and other industries according to its website. Dolby Vision “is a more comprehensive approach that has value in the market, while HDR10 is more like a special ‘light’ case of Dolby Vision,” also with marketplace value, said Insight. “Both formats, and others, will coexist in the market with no winners or losers.”

The FCC's apps-based set-top plan mustn't allow rewriting “any terms or conditions contained in programming contracts between broadcasters and multichannel video programming distributors,” NAB said in a letter posted in docket 16-42 Friday. Ex parte filings by programmers have suggested the set-top proposal being pursued by the FCC could involve the commission in a licensing regime to allow third-party set-top makers access to MVPD content (see 1608240064). “NAB cannot support any order where the Commission creates an ongoing ability to review or modify broadcaster contracts through the licensing process,” it said. “Any such provision undermines the Commission’s stated goals of protecting content, respecting copyright and avoiding third-party casualties in its quest to generate a competitive set-top box marketplace.” The initial FCC plan explicitly said it wouldn't interfere with existing contracts between programmers and MVPDs, and its latest plan should follow the same directive, NAB said. “The tasks of developing the terms and conditions of the license and determining whether an entity is compliant with the license must be at the exclusive discretion of the licensing body itself,” NAB said. “Any other outcome would necessarily involve the Commission in the interpretation of contractual terms and determinations of which terms should or should not be honored by competing applications. This is unacceptable.” Tech groups also lobbied last week on the NPRM (see 1609020031).

CBS is starting a commercial-free version of its CBS All Access VOD subscription service at $9.99 a month, in addition to its current, $5.99 a month service featuring commercials, the company said in a news release Wednesday. It nevertheless said the commercial-free plan's live-streaming of CBS stations will have the same commercials as the broadcasts, while some on-demand shows will include promotional interruptions.

Failing to pay new FCC increased application fees could delay processing of new applications, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post Tuesday. The FCC announced application fees would be increased effective Tuesday (see 1608300047), and the fee increase affects many common broadcaster filings such as applications for transfers of control, new technical facilities, license renewals and biennial ownership reports, Oxenford said.

Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia filed the opening brief in its second court challenge of the FCC incentive auction rules, according to documents filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit. FAB’s previous challenge of the auction rules was dismissed for a lack of standing (see 1608010060), because the company owned no low-power TV stations. For this challenge, FAB has co-filers that hold LPTV licenses and participated in the debate over the auction order: Signal Above, Grace Worship Center and Excellence in Christian Broadcasting. FAB’s previous case challenged the incentive auction as an unconstitutional taking of LPTV property. Its latest case argues the auction is an illegal punishment of broadcasters, and allowing wireless carriers to evict LPTV stations from their spectrum is “an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional authority to a private entity,” FAB said in a news release.

LG will use the IFA show in Berlin to demonstrate the “power” of high-dynamic-range technology with broadcasters and content providers, the company said in a Friday announcement from Seoul. In addition to showcasing HDR10 and Dolby Vision, one demo will involve transmitting with hybrid log gamma (HLG) HDR technology favored by broadcasters like the BBC and NHK using SES’ Astra satellite network and the BBC’s terrestrial broadcasting system, LG said. HLG uses “a single distribution bitstream which can be decoded by both dedicated HDR receivers and legacy non-HDR receivers,” it said. “This new standard is designed to enable broadcasters to send HDR transmissions over cable and to provide streaming live content, making HLG an excellent choice for broadcast HDR services.” At IFA, LG will be the first publicly to demonstrate HDR technology combining high-frame-rate transmissions with HLG content, it said.