Weigel Says The Quiet Part Out Loud

LocalProximity
Written By Tim Hanlon

Abdul Basit / @basitxd / via Unsplash

For years, the debate over ATSC 3.0 — marketed as “NextGen TV” — has been framed as innovation versus inertia. Supporters promise sharper images, interactivity, and a modernized over-the-air experience; skeptics are dismissed as defenders of an aging standard.

But in comments filed with the FCC last week, Weigel Broadcasting upended that tidy narrative.

What Weigel Said — And Why It Matters

Weigel is not a consumer advocacy group or a tech critic lobbing complaints from the sidelines. It is a Chicago-based, privately held broadcaster that operates local stations in major markets and owns some of the country’s most successful multicast networks — including MeTV, Heroes & Icons, Catchy Comedy, Movies!, and Story Television — all built to serve free, over-the-air viewers. In short, Weigel’s business depends on antenna households.

The company does not oppose ATSC 3.0 outright. But in its FCC filing, it does something unusual: it states plainly what many of the technology’s strongest backers tend to emphasize more candidly in investor settings.

For much of the industry, the primary appeal of ATSC 3.0 is not better television. It is the ability to monetize broadcast spectrum for non-broadcast uses — even if that comes at the expense of free TV.

That is the quiet part Weigel says out loud.

At its core, Weigel’s argument is straightforward, if uncomfortable: ATSC 3.0 is being advanced less as a consumer upgrade than as a strategic pivot away from traditional broadcasting. The most heavily promoted features — datacasting, conditional access, and other still-undefined services — are largely unrelated to the core mission of free, universal television.

And Weigel’s concern is not abstract. It stems from how the transition itself is being structured.

A ‘Voluntary’ Transition That Really Isn’t

The FCC is currently considering whether to eliminate the requirement that stations simulcast in ATSC 1.0 while rolling out ATSC 3.0. In theory, that would let each broadcaster decide when — or whether — to turn off its legacy signal.

In practice, as Weigel argues, a station-by-station exit would amount to a de facto nationwide “flash cut,” just without a formal deadline. Once large station groups drop ATSC 1.0, the standard’s economics quickly unravel: viewers without NextGen TV tuners lose access to major stations, ad value declines, and smaller broadcasters are left operating on a diminished platform with little practical option but to follow.

That’s not consumer choice — It’s market leverage. The transition may be “voluntary” for broadcasters, but for viewers, it won’t feel that way.

Follow The Incentives, Not The Technology

That raises a basic question: why rush toward a transition that could weaken a service that still works?

Over-the-air television isn’t vanishing. Antenna use has rebounded. Broadcast sports remain powerful. Diginets deliver loyal, sizable audiences. For millions of Americans, free TV’s simplicity, affordability, and privacy are strengths, not flaws.

Weigel’s answer is direct: many of ATSC 3.0’s most enthusiastic backers are less focused on improving broadcasting than on repurposing spectrum.

ATSC 3.0 allows stations to allocate most of their capacity to non-broadcast uses while still technically satisfying FCC broadcasting minimums. That creates a myriad of (arguably intriguing) opportunities for things like over-the-air software updates, industrial data delivery, location services, subscription-style offerings, and other emerging applications.

In conversations with investors and industry insiders, spectrum is increasingly characterized less as a vehicle for delivering free TV and more as a long-term strategic asset — valued not primarily for the programming it carries today, but for the future commercial opportunities it may eventually enable.

That framing matters. It treats broadcast licenses not as public-interest obligations to serve viewers, but as speculative assets to be monetized over time. That’s not a plan for improving TV broadcasting — it’s a corporate holding strategy.

Why DRM Isn’t A Side Effect

Digital rights management is one of the mechanisms enabling this shift, turning broadcast spectrum into a controlled, monetizable platform. It enables conditional access, paywalls, data collection, and integration with broadband services, while also adding new costs, complexity, and points of failure for audiences who rely on broadcast because it is free, simple, and private.

The effects are already apparent. Viewers with fully functional antennas and DVRs sometimes cannot reliably record or even watch certain over-the-air channels. Some broadcasts now demand an active internet connection for authentication. Others rely on authorization systems run by private entities such as A3SA, which act in practice as gatekeepers controlling who can transmit and who can receive.

The consumer backlash has been significant, with a surge of complaints filed with the FCC. Weigel’s warning is unambiguous: this is private control over broadcasting, imposed without public oversight, and fundamentally at odds with the reasons people choose over-the-air TV in the first place.

What The FCC Is Being Asked To Ignore

What makes Weigel’s filing so striking isn’t a rejection of ATSC 3.0 itself, but a challenge to the industry’s misaligned incentives.

Many of the new standard’s touted consumer benefits — sharper picture, stronger signals, robust sound — could have been delivered under ATSC 1.0, if serving viewers were the true priority. The lack of organic demand for NextGen TV shows the problem isn’t technology — it’s strategy.

The Communications Act does not allow broadcasters to compromise free TV in pursuit of speculative, non-broadcast revenue. Nor does it sanction hoarding spectrum under the guise of modernization. Weigel isn’t asking the FCC to halt ATSC 3.0; it’s asking the agency to recognize what’s really happening and set guardrails before free television potentially becomes collateral damage.

In an industry full of euphemisms, Weigel spoke plainly. It translated the ATSC 3.0 debate into clear terms — and once framed that way, it is impossible to ignore.

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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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