The Next Broadcast War Is Over The Spectrum TV Doesn't Need

Local TVProximity
Written By Tim Hanlon

A year and a half ago, the emerging fight between ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast looked like a classic standards war. Broadcasters had spent years building “NextGen TV” around ATSC 3.0, while a smaller group of low-power operators promoted 5G Broadcast as a cheaper, more mobile-friendly alternative.

That battle continues. But increasingly, the more important story is what both sides actually agree on: the public airwaves originally reserved for broadcast television may no longer be entirely about “TV.”

The 6 MHz Channel Starts Getting Smaller

The clearest shift is that major broadcasters are beginning to put numbers around how much spectrum they believe conventional television may actually require.

At a September investor conference, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said that once ATSC 1.0 is gone, the company would need only about 20% to 25% of its spectrum capacity for its existing core broadcast business. The remainder could support EdgeBeam datacasting services or potentially be leased for wireless or satellite applications.

Nexstar CFO Lee Ann Gliha was similarly explicit. As “rough justice,” she said, once ATSC 1.0 no longer needs to be supported, a station using 6 MHz today could do essentially everything it currently does in perhaps 2 MHz using ATSC 3.0.

Gray executive Kevin Latek has talked about doing more with “less spectrum allocated to our service,” while Scripps CEO Adam Symson recently described his company’s spectrum holdings as a “gold mine” whose “best and highest uses” are still being evaluated.

That is a considerable distance from the original consumer-facing NextGen TV pitch of better pictures, better sound and more robust emergency alerts.

Increasingly, ATSC 3.0’s most important economic feature may not be what it adds to television, but how much spectrum it allows broadcasters to use for something else.

The Rivals Are Starting To Sound Alike

The 5G Broadcast camp is moving toward much the same destination.

HC2 continues asking the FCC to permit voluntary 5G Broadcast use by LPTV stations. A newer proposal from XGN/X1 Mobile and Tyche Media makes the tradeoff more explicit: preserve at least one free 720p linear television stream, then devote at least half of the remaining capacity (2 MHz or more) to public-safety applications.

In other words, conventional TV remains; it just no longer has an exclusive claim on the channel.

Even the technical divide between ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast is becoming less distinct. At the NAB Show this spring, Castanet and Neutral Wireless demonstrated the two standards sharing the same 6 MHz channel.

The ATSC standards body itself is developing “Broadcast-to-Everything,” or B2X, standards intended to extend broadcast and multicast delivery into mobile networks and other nontraditional endpoints.

Sinclair technologist Mark Aitken has gone further, arguing that the ATSC-versus-5G framing is itself a false choice: 5G capabilities can coexist with ATSC 3.0 rather than displace it.

At that point, the standards argument starts to look secondary. Both camps are moving toward the same basic architecture: a flexible, one-to-many IP delivery platform in which “TV” is just one application among many.

The Spectrum Question Gets Awkward

There is nothing inherently improper about that.

FCC rules already allow television licensees to use excess digital capacity for ancillary services, ranging from data transmission to subscription offerings, so long as they continue providing the required free over-the-air television service. Certain revenue-producing ancillary services also carry a fee payable to the federal government.

The policy question gets harder when the ancillary service stops looking ancillary.

If modern compression and transmission technology can deliver free local television using only a fraction of a 6 MHz channel, there is little obvious virtue in leaving the rest underused. Emergency communications, GPS backup, software distribution, automotive data and other services may well represent a better use of that capacity than another collection of low-value diginets.

But the industry’s own efficiency argument creates an uncomfortable question.

Broadcasters do not own their 6 MHz channels as conventional private property. They are licensed to use them under a public-interest framework historically built around providing free television service.

So the more enthusiastically broadcasters describe 70% or 80% of that channel as available for other commercial uses, the easier it becomes to ask: if conventional television requires only 2 MHz of channel capacity, what should happen to the remaining 4?

That is what made Weigel Broadcasting’s warning about ATSC 3.0 earlier this year so interesting. Weigel was not arguing that datacasting itself was illegitimate. It was asking for a guardrail ensuring that meaningful capacity remained devoted to free, internet-independent television.

In other words, the concern was that free television could eventually become the minority tenant on spectrum allocated and licensed for television broadcasting.

The irony is that ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast may not represent competing visions for the future at all. They may simply be different technical routes toward the same spectrum thesis: television occupying part of the channel while the rest becomes a broader wireless infrastructure asset.

If that is where the industry is heading, the next broadcast fight will not be over which standard wins. It will be over who gets to decide what happens to the spectrum television no longer needs.

Episode 26 Of “In The Vicinity”

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Tim Hanlon

Tim Hanlon is the Founder & CEO of the Chicago-based Vertere Group, LLC – a boutique strategic consulting and advisory firm focused on helping today’s most forward-leaning media companies, brands, entrepreneurs, and investors benefit from rapidly changing technological advances in marketing, media and consumer communications.

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