Monty Tayloe

The director of the FTC Consumer Protection Bureau weighed in Friday in FCC docket 16-42 on FCC-proposed changes to rules for set-top boxes, alongside comments from pay-TV carriers, programmers, and advertisers. Set-top proposal opponent the Future of TV Coalition and proponent Consumer Video Choice Coalition filed thousands of citizen comments on the matter. Consumer Protection Bureau Director Jessica Rich didn't weigh in either way on the merits of the FCC plan but commented on the possibilities for enforcing privacy rules on third-party set-top makers, in a letter some industry officials said strengthened the case for the FCC proposal and others characterized as staking out a jurisdictional claim.

LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 may have been the belle of the ball at the NAB Show (see 1604200051), but some large broadcasters and networks, most notably CBS, had reservations about the new standard and NAB's support of a petition for FCC authorization of ATSC 3.0's physical layer (see 1604130065), broadcasters, attorneys and other industry officials said in interviews last week. Those misgivings are believed to stem from the uncertainty of the undertaking, the expense and its possible effects on the network/affiliate dynamic, they said. They are part of the reasoning behind ATSC 3.0's voluntary transition plan, they said.

LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 will be put out for comment before the end of the month, and incentive auction watchers “should expect” that it could take multiple auction stages to complete the auction, said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler during Q&A at the NAB Show Wednesday. Broadcasters and broadcast attorneys watching the speech called Wheeler's remarks on the new standard (see 1604180058) encouraging. Attendees interpreted his comments on the auction many different ways, from being a signal that a high clearing target is likely, to a warning to manage expectations. “This is not a one and done activity,” Wheeler said of the auction. "We will do it again and again for as long as it takes for the market to work."

LAS VEGAS -- Third-party set-top boxes having the capacity to strip out or overlay the advertising in a pay-TV content stream with new, different ads shouldn't concern opponents of the FCC's set-top box proposal because market forces will prevent abuse, TiVo Chief Technology Officer Joseph Weber said Monday during a contentious panel at the NAB Show.

LAS VEGAS -- The FCC should hold a summit of incentive auction stakeholders to plan the repacking process, Commissioner Ajit Pai said Monday at one of several panels on the incentive auction at the NAB Show 2016. Pai praised the idea as a way to resolve the repacking process, which wireless and broadcast industry panelists agreed is extremely complex. “We can't embrace an every-broadcaster-for-itself policy in the repacking,” Pai said. Panelists from NAB and CTA also said Monday that the repacking is complex, speaking about the effects on the industry if the auction were to enter into a second stage after failing to meet its initial clearing target. Since the FCC is required to choose the highest amount of spectrum it believes it can get as a clearing target, some believe that a second stage “will probably happen,” Wilkinson Barker attorney Jonathan Cohen said.

LAS VEGAS -- NAB doesn't expect opposition at the FCC to the joint petition for approval of the ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcasting standard, NAB CEO Gordon Smith told us at the NAB Show after his keynote Monday. "We have no reason to believe they are opposed in any way." The FCC "has a choice before it," Smith said during the speech, praising the standard's voluntary transition plan. "It is our job as your association to make sure you have choices for the future," Smith told the NAB Show crowd. "It is not our job to make those choices."

An executive branch filing in support of the FCC set-top box proceeding (see 1604150003) is largely laudatory of the commission's proposal but also questions aspects of the agency's plans on privacy and copyright, which have also been a focus of the proposal's opponents. “The Commission should take steps to ensure that expansion of competition in navigation devices does not diminish existing privacy protections,” NTIA Administrator Larry Strickling said in the filing. Privacy and copyright concerns were the focus of a joint NCTA/MPAA news briefing denouncing the FCC plan last week (see 1604130052), which itself followed experts saying that access to consumer data may be the ultimate tech prize in the NPRM approved by a politically split FCC (see 1603080037).

The FCC is considered likely to grant a petition from broadcasters and tech companies to authorize the physical layer of the next generation ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard (see 1404090027), broadcast attorneys told us Wednesday and Thursday. The gradual, industry-driven transition plan is seen as asking relatively little from the commission, and shouldn't be “a heavy lift,” a broadcast lawyer said. That is in keeping with recent forecasts from ATSC President Mark Richer that broadcasters and tech companies would "take the lead" at the FCC in "a unified approach" that won't be "controversial" (see 1603280043).

Trade groups representing broadcasters, tech companies and others jointly filed a petition for rulemaking Wednesday asking the FCC to allow broadcasters to begin using the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard. “This enhanced digital IP-based standard will create the bedrock for continuing innovation by the television industry for decades to come,” said the petition filed by America's Public Television Stations (APTS), CTA, NAB and a group of broadcasters and electronics companies called the Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance, which was officially formed Tuesday (see 1604120069).

The incentive auction and ensuing repacking are expected to dominate next week's NAB Show, but the auction's seeming-inevitability and strict anti-collusion rules will likely change the tone of those conversations, compared with past years, said industry representatives in recent interviews. Broadcasters who attend the convention with the incentive auction technically in progress are likely to be mostly those planning to continue broadcasting, a lawyer noted. That makes attendees more likely to be focused on post-auction strategizing and equipment and resources conducive to a smooth repacking, the attorney said.