MVPD Groups, Broadcasters at Odds Over ATSC 3.0 Multicasting Proposals

MVPD groups and broadcasters disagree whether proposed rule changes designed to ease the ATSC 3.0 transition should come with additional restrictions on the standard, said comments filed by Friday’s deadline on a November further NPRM in docket 16-142 (see 2111050049).

The comments are in response to FCC proposals to clarify the agency’s requirements on ATSC 3.0 simulcasts to allow arrangements where a single broadcaster’s multicast, secondary programming streams are divided among multiple hosting stations, and also make clear which station is responsible for FCC violations when one station is hosting the multicast stream of another. The Media Bureau now authorizes the arrangements through a special temporary authority process that One Media called “clunky.” The proposals in the FNPRM “will simplify the ATSC 3.0 multicast licensing process, freeing both broadcasters and commission staff from having to file repetitive requests,” said Cox Media Group.

“Stronger safeguards are necessary” on stations hosting each other’s programming streams on multicast channels to prevent ownership rule workarounds and burdens for MVPDs, said the American Television Alliance. “Deploying Next Gen Broadcast technology is hard,” said One Media: The FCC should “permit commonsense actions to streamline the process of placing responsibility for programming on the station that originates that content.”

NCTA and ATVA are concerned that the rule changes could allow broadcasters to greatly expand their use of hosting and multicast channels to get around the top-four prohibition and other restrictions, or use hosting arrangements to amass spectrum. “Cable system capacity is limited, and pressure to carry additional multicast streams under one broadcast license could produce further strain,” said NCTA. The FCC should limit “the number and types of multicast streams a station may broadcast through a host station.” If the goal of the rule changes is to preserve broadcasters' existing coverage and programming during the transition, “stations should be limited to the streams, formats, and resolution they carry today,” ATVA said.

Broadcasters need room to maneuver in hosting arrangements because the transition isn’t relying on additional spectrum, said 3.0 consortium BitPath. “Broadcasters need the flexibility to aggregate ‘spare’ ATSC 1.0 capacity wherever they can find it so the streams of a station converting to ATSC 3.0 can be hosted without degradation,” said BitPath. “Overly stringent regulatory requirements may well have the unintended consequence of encouraging stations to drop multicast streams,” NAB said.

Broadcasters have largely gone after the easiest markets and arrangements for hosting first, BitPath said. That means as the transition continues the challenge of finding capacity in markets to host all the needed programming streams for all stations in both ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 will “only become more acute,” it said. That limited capacity and the need for “massive consumer adoption” will prevent broadcasters from degrading their TV services in favor of ATSC 3.0 datacasting, BitPath said.

Increased flexibility makes it easier for noncommercial educational stations to participate in the transition, said America’s Public Television Stations and PBS in joint comments. “Without expeditious adoption of ‘mix and match’ multicasting flexibility, public television stations face the risk of being ‘left behind’ the rest of the broadcast industry," they said.

ATVA wants transparency requirements on multicasting arrangements, five-year sunsets and regular notice to viewers that the arrangements are temporary. “These measures will help avoid establishing viewer reliance on temporary multicasting measures and forestall future pleas to grandfather this multicasting as a means of preserving service.” The FCC should also require hosting arrangements that don’t provide coverage of 95% of the originating station’s service area to be ineligible for expedited processing, ATVA said. The STA process and existing 3.0 rules already “impose significant disclosure requirements on agreements between hosts and simulcast stations,” said Pearl TV.

Several broadcast entities opposed the FNPRM’s rejection of an NAB proposal to allow hosting of 3.0 programming without an accompanying simulcast in 1.0. The FCC rejected the proposal because it hasn’t received any requests for such an arrangement, but Pearl TV said it “respectfully disagrees with the contention that this scenario is merely hypothetical.” Broadcasters could use such programming as a “showcase” for ATSC 3.0, said Gray Television. The need for 3.0-only programming streams “is wholly foreseeable” and “there is simply no reason for the Commission not to adopt rules in this proceeding that will govern this issue,” NAB said.

ATVA said the agency should bar broadcasters from using multicast arrangements to create new top-four combinations, or from avoiding restrictions on affiliate swaps. “Abuse of this loophole has led to affiliation swaps that either created new local duopolies, automatically raised retransmission consent prices or both,” ATVA said. The FCC “should condition the grant of a multicast license on the outcome of the 2018 (or future) Quadrennial Review,” NCTA said. Numerous broadcast commenters said the FCC shouldn’t broaden this proceeding. The docket should focus on “a narrow set of technical issues,” not on “tangentially related policy questions that are already being explored” in others, said Cox Media Group.

The FCC should make it clear the rules adopted for multicasting also apply to low-power TV stations, said the LPTV Broadcasters Association. LPTV stations are hosts and partners with full-powers in the transition, and need the same certainty about the FCC’s stance, the group said.