WASHINGTON, D.C. — America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) and PBS have filed comments with the FCC in support of proposed rules that would assist in advancing NEXTGEN TV market transitions and, in turn, encourage public television stations participating in those transitions.
The FCC’s proposed rules would explicitly permit ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 stations licensing flexibility for multicast streams.
Specifically, APTS and PBS support the proposed licensing flexibility for primary and multicast streams to allow broadcasters the ability to share streams across multiple station hosts to maintain service where possible to viewers during transitions to ATSC 3.0.
In the filing, APTS and PBS urged the FCC’s adoption of licensing flexibility. This, the organizations say, is essential for public television stations to participate fully in NEXTGEN TV deployments while avoiding unnecessary viewer disruptions to public television multicast streams.
“Without expeditious adoption of ‘mix and match’ multicasting flexibility, public television stations face the risk of being ‘left behind’ the rest of the broadcast industry on NEXTGEN TV deployments with the end result that audiences could miss out on the very real public interest benefits that public television can bring to the NEXTGEN marketplace,” the groups state in the filing.
— Additional reporting by Adam R Jacobson, in Boca Raton, Fla.
