A Second Chance To Get Digital TV Right
Logan Voss via Unsplash
The American broadcast industry stands at a familiar crossroads at the moment - championing a transition to ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) with a familiar list of promises: stunning 4K Ultra HD video, immersive Dolby audio, interactive features, hyper-local emergency alerts, and transformative datacasting. Yet for anyone paying attention, this pitch sounds hauntingly familiar — nearly identical to the pledges made during the first digital television transition in the mid-to-late 2000s, promises largely abandoned once the analog signals went dark.
The Broken Promises Of The (First) Digital Transition
When Congress mandated the 2009 switch from analog to digital TV, broadcasters received unprecedented government support. The federal government funded $1.5 billion in converter box coupons, and spectrum auctions generated $19.6 billion for public coffers. In exchange, broadcasters vowed to reinvent free over-the-air television.
The vision was compelling: multicasting would provide more local programming, datacasting would turn broadcast spectrum into a digital pipeline for new services, and portable dongles would deliver free mobile TV. For a moment, that future seemed possible.
Disney’s MovieBeam digitally drizzled movies via datacasting to subscribers via PBS stations. The iBlast consortium — backed by Tribune, Gannett, Cox, and others — aimed to deliver up to 75 GB of digital content daily to 93 percent of US homes. USDTV leased spare digital bandwidth in three markets to offer skinny MVPD bundles (including ESPN and HGTV) over broadcast signals for $20 a month. NBC’s Weather Plus brought continuous, hyper-local coverage to O&O and affiliate subchannels. WRAL-TV even broadcast multiple NCAA tournament basketball games simultaneously using multicasting — a glimpse of local broadcasting’s untapped potential.
Yet by the end of the aughts, all of these initiatives had collapsed. The mobile TV revolution never materialized. Interactive services never launched. Emergency alerting barely evolved. And datacasting — the most transformative idea of all — became commercially extinct.
Broadcasters instead filled their new digital spectrum with low-cost, library-rerun-heavy “diginet” subchannels like MeTV, Movies! and Cozi. While some found loyal audiences, they represented the opposite of innovation — stations effectively using new technology to repackage old programming, rather than invest in new local content or interactive services.
Even the picture quality promise faltered: bandwidth-crammed subchannels yielded blocky, compressed video and stuttering sound. The grand public investment in digital broadcasting produced, at best, a sharper rerun of yesterday’s television.
ATSC 3.0: Same Script, Different Standard
Now, less than two decades later, broadcasters are repeating the pattern. The National Association of Broadcasters wants the FCC to mandate a full shutdown of ATSC 1.0 by 2030, pitching ATSC 3.0 with the same flourish: breathtaking 4K video, Dolby Atmos sound, interactive voting and statistics, geo-targeted alerts, and new forms of datacasting for everything from cars to smart cities.
The reality is far less transformative. Despite technical rollout to roughly 75 percent of the country, consumer adoption remains minimal: industry estimates suggest somewhere between 10-15 million ATSC 3.0-enabled receivers have shipped, representing, at best, around 10% of US TV households — with actual NextGen TV feature usage likely much lower. Most TV makers limit NextGen tuners to premium models, and few broadcasts actually use 4K resolution. Even major live sports broadcasts remain in 1080p, constrained by simulcasting bandwidth.
Instead, the real excitement has centered around datacasting’s “beyond TV” commercial potential. Industry forecasts predict up to $15 billion a year by 2030 from non-TV uses — leasing spectrum to automakers, logistics firms, and public-safety networks. Broadcasters are openly describing ATSC 3.0 as a new data business rather than a television upgrade. That vision has driven a coordinated push across the industry, with joint ventures like BitPath and EdgeBeam promoting ATSC 3.0’s datacasting potential as the next big revenue stream — a play for connected cars, smart cities, and enterprise data networks rather than viewers.
This shift amounts to a potentially profound betrayal of the public trust. The airwaves are (and have historically been) granted to broadcasters as public stewards of a limited natural resource, not as speculators free to convert communal spectrum into private data highways for profit.
Encryption And Obsolescence: History Repeating Itself?
Consumer advocates warn that even encrypted NextGen TV channels could turn once-free airwaves into effectively premium-access services — a stark reversal of broadcasting’s universal mandate.
The parallels with past missteps are striking. Broadcasters’ decision to encrypt ATSC 3.0 signals through the private consortium A3SA — controlled by major networks — has stifled device innovation. DVR manufacturers like SiliconDust and Tablo have been blocked from certification, preventing features like whole-home recording or flexible streaming. Even approved tuners often require a constant internet connection for decryption, and certificates can expire, potentially rendering devices useless.
It’s CableCARD all over again — the same anti-consumer encryption framework that once strangled innovation in cable DVRs. Only now, it’s hitting over-the-air television, long considered the one truly free source of broadcast content.
ATSC 3.0 also accelerates hardware obsolescence. Most existing ATSC 1.0 TVs and tuners won’t work, forcing consumers to purchase new sets or external boxes costing $100 or more — barely sixteen years after the last mandatory digital transition that rendered analog sets inert. Meanwhile, many major streaming platforms already deliver 4K, HDR, and interactive features to today’s nearly ubiquitous smart TV landscape — without the imposition of industry- (or, potentially government-)mandated hardware upgrades.
Public Cost, Private Benefit?
The initial digital TV transition in 2009 was framed as a public-good initiative: clearing valuable broadcast spectrum to enhance local emergency communications, while also generating meaningful revenue (nearly $20 billion) for the US Treasury through auctions of the reclaimed spectrum for wireless industry development. Broadcasters received free digital spectrum, mandatory carriage protections, and federal subsidies — in exchange for promises of technological innovation and better service.
The ATSC 3.0 transition currently offers no comparable public return. There is no spectrum auction, no public-safety windfall, and no consumer subsidy program. Instead, the FCC is considering easing simulcasting and coverage requirements, potentially allowing stations to retire ATSC 1.0 signals with little advance notice. Broadcasters stand to gain regulatory relief and new datacasting revenue, while the public bears the cost, disruption, and confusion.
The Public Interest Imperative
The early-2000s digital transition offers a cautionary tale: broadcasters promised innovation and public benefit, but once spectrum rights were secured, those promises largely vanished. Today, the proposed step-up to ATSC 3.0 feels eerily similar — touted as the next great leap in television while, instead, primarily serving broadcasters’ regulatory and revenue interests.
But it’s not too late to ensure that the same result doesn’t happen again. The FCC’s current rulemaking process is the “now” moment to demand real accountability, where ATSC 3.0 privileges should be directly tied to measurable consumer benefits:
“Better TV” should be the primary focus of the transition: true and consistent 4K programming, meaningful interactive viewing enhancements, increased FAST-like local channel offerings, targeted sub-DMA ad targeting infrastructure/measurement, robustly enhanced hyper-local emergency alerting — all with enforceable penalties to broadcasters for failure.
Encryption should be prohibited on public airwaves to preserve open OTA broadcast reception and DVR recording functionality, while consumers should be assured unfettered TV access through converter-box incentives/subsidies, extended 1.0 signal simulcast availability, and guaranteed service continuity throughout the process.
Non-TV datacasting revenues should be fairly apportioned/redirected for public benefit — either as a direct funding source for specific projects related to the transition (e.g., set-top/tuner subsidies), or as ongoing usage fees that, like 1.0 spectrum auctions, go to the US Treasury.
And, any future relaxation of ownership rules, MVPD retransmission consent schema or public interest content obligations should hinge on tangible consumer gains, not speculative promises.
If implemented, these safeguards could ensure that ATSC 3.0 finally serves the public it claims to benefit — rather than just protecting or enhancing broadcasters’ bottom lines.
What Say You, FCC (And Congress)?
Broadcast spectrum is a public resource, licensed to serve “the public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Yet the courses of the previous and current digital TV transitions shows an industry more focused on securing public privileges first and delivering innovation later — if at all.
The FCC — and the Congress meant to oversee it — now faces a defining choice: permit broadcasters to repeat history, or ensure that this “NextGen TV” transition finally fulfills its long list of promises. Without real accountability and measurable outcomes, ATSC 3.0 risks becoming ATSC 1.0 all over again — another expensive cycle of hype, obsolescence, and wasted public spectrum value.
The technology for genuinely revolutionary broadcasting already exists. What’s missing is the political will and regulatory backbone to ensure it serves the public that owns the airwaves, rather than simply enriching broadcasters. This isn’t a question of capability — it’s a question of accountability.
Local News To Peruse
Even With Regulatory Fast-Tracking, NextGen Is Racing Against the Clock - Adam Wiener [TVNewsCheck]
Sinclair CEO Expects FCC To Raise Or Eliminate Broadcast Ownership Cap In First Half Of 2026 - Lucas Manfredi [The Wrap]
When Networks Go Dark On Virtual MVPDs, Local Broadcasters And Viewers Pay The Price - Tom Sly [TVNewsCheck]
'Broadcasting is Too Important to Fail' - [TVTech]
Main Street Sports RSNs Renew Deals With Brewers, Reds, Royals - Anthony Crupi [Sportico]
