FCC Should Reject Charter Concerns About ATSC 3.0, Says Sinclair's One Media

Concerns about the ATSC 3.0 transition’s effect on MVPDs raised by Charter are “misplaced and premature,” said Sinclair's One Media in a letter to the FCC posted Friday in docket 16-142. MVPDs won’t need equipment to decode 3.0 signals “at this time and for the foreseeable future” because broadcasters are simulcasting 3.0 channels in the current standard, One Media said. Broadcasters have “a strong interest” in MVPD carriage of 3.0 and are negotiating carriage terms through retransmission consent agreements, One Media said. One Media also objected to Charter concerns that 3.0 doesn’t have consumer devices and that it duplicates features available through the internet. Those deployment considerations “have zero impact on MVPD access to broadcaster-provided programming” and reflect “a particularly jaundiced view of the Commission’s regulatory role,” One Media said.