Characterizing the transition as “stalled,” the association asked the FCC last week to recommit itself to promoting the standard to the public and take steps to advance the development of peripherals that consumers could use to access 3.0 signals (since the standard is not-backward compatible) as well as establish a Task Force to focus on the resolving issues hampering the transition.
TV Tech
Back in the summer of 2022, Bob Raikes had wondered if ATSC 3.0 was just too late. It seems as though the market for NextGen TV may be either stalled or just withering from a lack of general interest. Essentially, ATSC 3.0 promises to enable the extension of features and software offerings possible from broadcasters, something that is absolutely necessary if the TV industry wants to stay in the game with cloud service providers. Not to mention the overall benefit for qualitative viewing. It also seems as if the broadcasters, understandably, are more concerned with their streaming media apps.
The price penalty to implement ATSC 3.0 means that it becomes a capex issue, and capex is going to go towards the pay TV services, while the broadcast industry continues to roll towards a sort of irrelevancy. It might be that the only thing consumers really want from their next generation of TVs is bigger screens and less money to buy them. Unless someone can prove a business model that makes sense, consumers can get pretty much all they want qualitatively from their apps.
May be at some point a media company is going to figure out that they can play a bigger role in the network, something that ATSC 3.0 can provide a framework for them to do, but media companies have been pushing back on tech since the days of the living room PC in the 90s. They are driven by eyeballs and the content that traps them for as long as they can get them. ATSC is an expense that is tangible to media businesses. ATSC is a data pipeline. TV doesn’t do data.
