Broadcasters Still Hopeful for ATSC 3.0 Despite Recent Hiccups
Broadcasters and ATSC 3.0 advocates say they're sticking with the standard despite a series of recent blows, including consumer electronics manufacturer LG ceasing to make 3.0 TVs, the emergence of a competing technology endorsed by international standards bodies, and a grassroots campaign urging the FCC to block broadcasters from encrypting their signals. In an email to members last week, the Advanced Television Systems Committee said the standard was facing “growing pains.” The nation’s largest broadcaster, Nexstar, emailed us Friday that it's “committed to transitioning to ATSC 3.0.” Broadcasters “are already too far down the road” to turn back now, said Joshua Weiss, CEO of broadcaster and 3.0 datacasting company Ark Multicast.
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“Every technology transition has its challenges,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland in an email bulletin last week referencing LG Electronics’ announcement it will suspend production of ATSC 3.0-ready televisions due to a patent lawsuit. LG stopped including ATSC 3.0 tech in televisions after a jury in July ruled against the company in a patent dispute in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas. LG “willfully infringed” on four patents from Constellation Designs in its ATSC 3.0 devices, said the final judgment, which awards Constellation $1.68 million “in the form of a running royalty.” “This challenging and uncertain patent landscape has forced LG to make the difficult decision to suspend the inclusion of ATSC 3.0-compatibility in its 2024 television lineup for the United States,” said an LG filing in docket 16-142.
LG didn’t respond to a request for comment, but 3.0 advocates told us they expect the company to appeal the verdict. The verdict is an “outlier decision” because it appears to calculate the value of the patents involved as being much higher than the patents held by other ATSC 3.0 companies, said Jerald Fritz, One Media’s executive vice president-strategic and legal affairs. “This is a temporary issue -- it will get resolved,” said Weiss. “LG’s decision to suspend support for NEXTGEN TV products in 2024 because of an ongoing patent dispute is unfortunate, but we are hopeful that the matter can be resolved,” emailed Pearl TV Executive Director Anne Schelle. “We continue to project that total NEXTGEN TV sales will cumulatively top 10 million units by year end.”
Most ATSC 3.0 patents are licensed through two “patent pools,” consortiums of companies that agree to cross license their intellectual property related to a specific tech. The two ATSC 3.0 patent pools, Avanci Broadcast and Via LA, license their patents at roughly equivalent prices, One Media's filing said. The court judgment doesn’t break the verdict down to a patent rate, but Fritz said that extrapolated out, it appears to be more than double the rates by Avanci and Via La. That outsize valuation is likely to be addressed on appeal, which could bring LG back into the ATSC 3.0 fold, he said. Constellation didn’t comment.
Meanwhile, other large consumer electronics companies such as Samsung and Sony continue to produce ATSC 3.0-ready TVs, 3.0 advocates noted. “The consumer technology industry itself is on course to have shipped a cumulative” 10 million ATSC 3.0 receivers in the U.S. by year's end, said Noland. “The impact of this patent situation is likely very limited.” “We expect that any intellectual property issues related to ATSC 3.0 will be resolved in a reasonable fashion as they have been for all other broadcast standards,” said a Nexstar spokesperson.
A second technology focused on using broadcast airwaves to deliver data, 5G broadcast, was included in the global standards published by international cellular standards-making body 3rd Generation Partnership Project at the end of September. The publication could help 5G broadcast (see 2309130065) -- which is expected to eventually allow TV signals to be receivable by 5G cellphones -- attain international adoption, say advocates for the new tech. Broadcasters have struggled to get ATSC 3.0 chips into cellphones. Currently, only one U.S. station is transmitting 5G broadcast, on an FCC experimental license. Though 5G broadcast company XGen Network said 5G broadcast isn’t intended as a competitor to 3.0, it has been targeted as such by 3.0 boosters Sinclair Broadcast and One Media. Weiss said he hopes both technologies will benefit broadcasting. “All boats will rise with the tide,” he said.
At the FCC, the agency’s ATSC 3.0 docket (16-142) is increasingly flooded with brief comments asking the agency to block broadcasters from using DRM to encrypt their 3.0 broadcasts. “By allowing DRM on ATSC 3.0, the FCC will be driving the final nail in the coffin of free TV,” Daniel Johnson said in a comment posted Friday. “The cost of cable with local channels has gotten out of hand. Now with this news of the DRM I won't be able to receive local channels with just an antenna, something that has been allowed for many, many years. This just doesn't seem in the public interest,” Michael Kight said in a comment Oct. 3. On Friday afternoon, 46 of the last 50 comments posted in the docket had similar messages on DRM apparently sent in by individual consumers. The comments appear to stem from a campaign by several YouTube personalities (see 2307130057) that began in July but appears to still be having an effect. Broadcasters need to be able to protect their content to make their signals a safe space for programmers, Pearl TV said. Since the FCC’s ATSC 3.0 task force The Future of TV initiative (see 2306090043) is still active and partly focused on consumer access to free broadcasting, the comments could have an effect on policy.
Broadcasters that have already bought into 3.0 told us they don’t see themselves shifting gears, but others are still waiting to see if the technology pans out before they invest. Cornerstone Television CEO Steve Johnson said he believes ATSC 3.0 could have advantages for reaching his viewers and generating revenue through datacasting, but they don’t yet justify the expense. He’s waiting for a “tipping point” where the standard becomes more monetarily viable, he said. Low-power TV broadcaster Gary Cocola said he has already spent a large amount of money on switching to 3.0, and he has to stick with it. “I don’t have a choice; I’m already invested,” Cocola said.