One Media’s ATSC 3.0 Comments Suggest It Ultimately Could Back Tuner Mandates

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)