A consortium of large TV broadcasters made up of Sinclair, Nexstar, Tegna and Tribune launched an industry work group to develop standard interfaces to accelerate electronic and automated advertising purchases on TV, said the Television Bureau of Advertising in a news release. Called the TV Interface Practices, or TIP, Initiative, the project is intended to help TV ad buying automation systems work together better to facilitate ad sales, the release said. “The goal of the TIP initiative is to accelerate local TV interoperability by creating a coalition of system providers to work with buyers and sellers to develop and implement streamlined transaction workflows using standards-based open APIs [application programming interfaces],” said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook in the release. The group proposed a set of APIs “to support the electronic transfer of ‘buy’ transactional data,” the release said. TVB, headed by Sook, will “provide a repository for the TIP Initiative’s work and open access for industry partners,” the release said. The consortium produced a white paper on best practices, called "Interface Automation Guidelines for Local TV Transactions." Advertising and content “monetization options” will expand with the spread of ATSC 3.0, said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley in the release. “For our industry to quickly and effectively optimize this opportunity, while ensuring transparency, it is important for us to collaborate on this effort ahead of the adoption of ATSC 3.0.”

FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly said modified agency actions Thursday contradict worries that commissioners won't be able to alter final decisions under the agency's policy of releasing draft items before monthly meetings. "Any concern making documents available ahead of @FCC meeting prevents changing text need only see number of substantive changes made to items at yesterday’s @FCC open meeting. Thanks @AjitPaiFCC!" He used the hashtags #FalseArgument, #TransparencyWorks and #NextCirculationItems, in Friday's tweet, which Pai retweeted. O'Rielly attached a link to a tweet by Communications Daily noting our Special Report story (see 1711060006) on the draft release policy, which O'Rielly supports expanding to items on circulation. NAB General Counsel Rick Kaplan replied to O'Rielly's tweet, saying it's "hard to argue with this kind of governmental transparency."

The Advanced Warning and Response Network (AWARN) Alliance sees the FCC vote authorizing voluntary deployments of ATSC 3.0 (see 1711160060) as laying "the ground work for major improvements in America’s emergency alerting system,” said Executive Director John Lawson. Recent disasters “provide more depressing examples that our current alerting systems are not adequate,” he said. Using 3.0, the alliance and “public safety partners will begin the technical development” of AWARN next year, he said. But Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld blasted FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for the vote, calling it an “action that primarily benefits Sinclair Broadcasting at the expense of consumers.” With Sinclair having “boasted” about the audio measurement tools it will develop and patent royalties it will collect from the next-gen standard, the order “does nothing to protect consumer privacy or protect consumers from the extra costs" of the transition, said Feld. Though NCTA was active in docket 16-142 with filings urging 3.0 not impose costs and burdens on cable companies and their customers, the group declined comment Friday on 3.0's approval.

Matthew Berry, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's chief of staff, criticized Democrats for opposing some items the agency adopted at Thursday's commissioners' meeting. The meeting "revealed contrast between a majority looking to the future, and a minority that is stuck in the past and trying to strangle technological innovation. The good news is that progress prevailed," he tweeted, which Pai "liked." A spokesman for Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Friday in response that "Clyburn’s record on enabling opportunities and spurring innovation for businesses and in communities large and small speaks for itself.” The office of Jessica Rosenworcel didn't comment.

The FCC now will adhere to a one-year deadline for decisions on approvals of new technology and services within its jurisdiction, said Chairman Ajit Pai in a speech at a Cato Institute event in New York Friday. “This process is what’s called for in a provision of the Communications Act -- Section 7,” Pai said. “You’ve probably never heard of it, and for good reason. It’s been on the books for decades, but it’s never been enforced. At long last, it will be,” Pai said. That one-year deadline is “lightspeed” in the “regulatory world,” Pai said.

“Unfortunate myths” are circulating about privacy concerns for ATSC 3.0, said NAB in a news release. The standard itself doesn't allow the collection of viewer data, but does have interactive services that can be accessed with a broadband connection, and that would allow targeted ads, said NAB. “This is nothing new.” Targeted advertisements would operate “just like other service providers you currently use (such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and virtually every website you visit, as well as cable and satellite TV providers),” the group said. Though the draft rules don’t contain privacy rules, the FTC rules governing privacy and consumer data will apply, the association said. Sinclair said viewer data would be "anonymized" (see 1711140046).

The draft ATSC 3.0 order “continues a troubling pattern of indifference at the FCC towards consumer privacy,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., in a letter to Chairman Ajit Pai. “Although privacy concerns were raised in the record, it was not addressed at all in the draft order released by the Commission,” she said. The word ‘privacy’ is not even mentioned a single time in the entire draft order.” The new standard could include targeted advertisements, which raises questions about how demographic data will be gathered, Dingell wrote. She asked Pai how the FCC would coordinate privacy protection for 3.0 users with the FTC, how the technology involved collects data, whether it will require consumer consent, and how that data will be protected from hacking. Dingell highlighted 3.0’s lack of backward compatibility: “We should be having a robust dialogue about the privacy implications of this new standard as well as ensuring we are doing everything possible for consumers in any transition.” Commissioner Mignon Clyburn tweeted that Dingell's letter raised "important questions" about the draft order. "Many questions remain unanswered as @FCC contemplates moving forward," Clyburn said. An FCC spokeswoman told us the agency has received the letter and is reviewing it.

CTA and NAB will team to run a transmission facility at WJW, Tribune Media's Fox TV affiliate in Cleveland, as a “living laboratory” to support implementation of ATSC 3.0, said the groups Tuesday in an announcement a little more than a week before FCC commissioners are expected to authorize 3.0's voluntary deployment (see 1710270063). The FCC granted NAB an experimental license to operate a full-power Channel 31 transmission facility at the site to help broadcasters and consumer tech companies prepare to deliver 3.0 products and services, the groups said. The associations will “oversee and manage the station’s activities,” they said. CTA told us a year ago it was in “the planning phase” for field-testing 3.0 reception at WJW (see 1611280030), which also ran the first live 3.0 broadcast of a major professional sporting event when it beamed Game 2 of the World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs from Cleveland's Progressive Field in October 2016 (see 1610260072). The Tribune station for years also has hosted 3.0 technology field trials (see 1507130007). NAB has had an experimental license from the FCC for operating the Cleveland test station for over a year, spokesman Dennis Wharton said Tuesday. The license was renewed in September for a two-year extension, he said. As for whether the CTA-NAB initiative at WJW would continue under the station's Sinclair ownership if Sinclair's Tribune buy is approved, "we’re not commenting on potential future business transactions involving the Cleveland test station," said Wharton.

The draft media ownership reconsideration order’s “hybrid” approach to allowing combinations of two top-four network stations in the same market (see 1710260049) could lead to joint retransmission consent negotiation on behalf of the two stations, NCTA said in a meeting Thursday with aides to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, recounted a filing in docket 14-50. The FCC “has found such joint negotiations to be anticompetitive and harmful to consumers,” NCTA said. Harms of joint negotiation are well supported in the record, and the FCC has to justify changing that finding to change the duopoly rule, NCTA said. If the agency moves ahead with the top-four rule change, it should bar such joint negotiations, or consider the impact on retrans negotiations as one of the criteria for determining whether such a combination will be allowed, the group said. The association argued there shouldn’t be an “arbitrary expiration date” on ATSC 3.0 simulcasting requirements, and expressed concern about the 3.0-related patents held by Sinclair: “The FCC cannot create a government-mandated monopoly for the intellectual property rights to build next-generation broadcast television products and then allow the patent rights holders to collect supra-competitive rents.” ATSC 3.0 could allow improved distance learning “on a customized local level,” blogged NAB Vice President-Spectrum Policy Alison Neplokh Tuesday. “Children could get lessons and materials customized to their curriculum at home without needing a broadband connection,” she said. “Low-income families in particular stand to benefit.”

Gray Television welcomes the FCC's “imminent approval” of ATSC 3.0 deployments (see 1710270063), said CEO Hilton Howell on a Monday earnings call. “By granting broadcasters the freedom to evolve technically, the FCC enables us to embrace a new standard that should open new opportunities for broadcasters, as well as new and better ways to serve our viewers.” This month also will “finally bring regulatory relief from the FCC,” Howell said of plans at commissioners' Nov. 16 meeting to vote in favor of local ownership deregulation. “It’s simply incredible that the FCC imposed the one-to-a-market rule that still governs mid-sized and small television markets before the bombing of Pearl Harbor” in 1941, he said. “No one can sincerely dispute that the world has changed considerably in the past few years, let alone in the last 76 years. We are grateful that the FCC finally will begin to take some long-overdue steps that permit local stations to take the steps necessary to be competitive.” Gray has “benefits of really strong duopoly operations” in its existing markets, said Howell, when asked in Q&A if local ownership deregulation will open up the company to new merger and acquisition opportunities. That’s not to say there won’t be “a great deal more opportunities that we will have in our existing markets,” he said. Gray will “continue to look at other transactions to grow a broader scale throughout the United States,” he said. “Things have been relatively slow on the M&A front,” but the company expects “things to pick up fairly rapidly after the FCC comes to a final conclusion,” he said. “It is our intention to take advantage of that whenever we have an appropriate, and financially appropriate, opportunity to do so.”