Industry Insights: ATSC 3.0 policy may define its future more than technology

As ATSC 3.0 moves deeper into live deployment, regulatory uncertainty is one of the defining forces shaping its trajectory.

In part two of this Industry Insights roundtable series, broadcast technology leaders examine how policy ambiguity influences capital planning, infrastructure design and vendor alignment. The discussion focuses on the absence of a mandated transition timeline, the financial burden of operating dual transmission systems, and the role receiver policy plays in breaking the adoption deadlock.

Panelists also explore what happens if the FCC never sets a hard sunset for ATSC 1.0 and how prolonged uncertainty risks locking NextGen TV into a permanent hybrid state. Together, these perspectives frame regulation not as a barrier to innovation, but as a structural lever that will determine the pace, scale and purpose of the NextGen TV transition.

Anne Schelle on NextGen TV’s progress and the fight for a hard cutoff

Key takeaways from this Industry Insights roundtable

• Regulatory clarity is pivotal: The absence of a firm ATSC 1.0 sunset date forces broadcasters to plan conservatively and sustain costly parallel systems.
• Dual operations limit ambition: Running ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 simultaneously constrains how aggressively stations can deploy advanced services.
• Receiver policy matters: Without broad tuner adoption in consumer devices, infrastructure investments struggle to translate into audience reach.
• Deadlines drive transitions: Previous broadcast shifts only accelerated once regulators set clear, date-certain mandates.
• Public value remains underleveraged: Emergency alerting, spectrum efficiency and societal benefits could advance faster with aligned national policy.

How much regulatory uncertainty still surrounds ATSC 3.0, and how does that shape near-term planning?

Alan Young, VP of strategic business development, Zixi: There is still meaningful regulatory uncertainty, and broadcasters are factoring that directly into how aggressively they move. Rather than stalling progress, this has encouraged more flexible, risk-aware planning. Stations are prioritizing investments that preserve optionality — systems that can support ATSC 3.0 services today without locking them into assumptions about timelines, mandates, or monetization models. In many ways, regulatory uncertainty has reinforced the value of infrastructure that can evolve without major reinvestment.

Paul Briscoe, chief architect, TAG Video Systems: When the U.S. transitioned to digital TV, the government provided subsidy coupons for households to purchase converter boxes for their analog TVs, and set a hard cutoff date for analog transmission. That created clarity and momentum. This time, the FCC is allowing ATSC 3.0 to exist alongside ATSC 1.0, but without a transition timeline or consumer incentives. Lack of action on transition enablement like before and a hard timeline for it is a key element of the challenge.

Edward Czarnecki, vice president, government and international, Digital Alert Systems: There’s still a fair amount of regulatory uncertainty around ATSC 3.0, and it absolutely affects near-term planning both broadcasters, manufacturers and the entire ecosystem. The biggest open question is whether and when the FCC will allow stations to turn off the ATSC 1.0 simulcast requirement. In the FCC’s latest rulemaking (the Fifth Further Notice) the Commission is clearly signaling it’s open to that idea, but it hasn’t made a final decision yet. Until that’s resolved, broadcasters basically have to plan for a world where they’re running two systems in parallel, which is expensive and limits how aggressive you can be with 3.0.

Mark Simpson, president and CEO,  Triveni Digital: Regulatory uncertainty around ATSC 3.0 remains one of the biggest factors shaping near-term planning across the industry. Without a clearly defined transition timeline or policy direction, many broadcasters and ecosystem partners are taking a cautious, wait-and-see approach to infrastructure investments and service expansion. Greater clarity from regulators would help accelerate deployment decisions and unlock broader innovation around NextGen TV services.

Which regulatory or policy decisions would have the greatest impact on accelerating adoption?

Edward Czarnecki, vice president, government and international, Digital Alert Systems: First, the biggest lever is clarity on the ATSC 1.0 simulcast requirement. Specifically, when stations can stop running two formats in parallel and under what conditions. As long as broadcasters are paying for a “dual-stack” world, a lot of stations will treat 3.0 as a cautious add-on instead of a full transition. Then there is receiver policy. Some form of tuner policy is the blunt instrument here. If you want fast adoption, the most direct thing is ensuring new TVs meaningfully support the standard.

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Lynn Rowe, member, RIST Forum, founder and CEO, One World Technologies: A thorough national analysis of how ATSC 3.0 infrastructure can optimize public-good outcomes is urgently needed. Such analysis would reveal how profit-only strategies have left service gaps that the standard could address. Policy that recognizes and incentivizes these broader societal benefits would accelerate adoption.

Mary Crebassa, VP, major accounts, LTN: Currently, the U.S. transition to ATSC 3.0 is voluntary and market-driven, which means adoption depends heavily on broadcaster economics and consumer hardware uptake. Regulatory clarity and incentives can significantly lower both broadcaster risk and consumer hesitation, speeding adoption and making NextGen TV a practical reality rather than a slowly emerging standard.  The FCC needs to mandate a transition deadline date for ATSC 1.0 Sunset, which forces widespread deployment.

What happens if the FCC does not set a hard transition deadline?

Edward Czarnecki, vice president, government and international, Digital Alert Systems: If the FCC never sets a hard transition deadline, the most likely outcome is a long, slow, uneven migration instead of a real shift. You’ll see pockets of strong ATSC 3.0 deployment in major markets, but nationally it stays in a kind of permanent hybrid mode — some stations all-in, others barely touching it. Without a deadline, there’s no forcing function for manufacturers, distributors, or broadcasters to fully commit, so everyone hedges. In practical terms, it means ATSC 3.0 keeps moving forward, but more as an optional upgrade than a true replacement, and the full public-interest benefits — especially things like advanced emergency alerting — take much longer to become universal.

Lynn Rowe, member, RIST Forum, founder and CEO, One World Technologies: Without a deadline, adoption will continue to slow and spectrum release for telcos will be delayed. Current telco delivery networks are already inefficient, and incremental improvements like QUIC are insufficient to solve the problem. This uncertainty ultimately harms both broadcaster and telecom planning.

Mary Crebassa, VP, major accounts, LTN: There’s a lot to unpack with that question. If the FCC never sets a sunset then we could likely get very slow progress with no breakthrough adoption and fewer innovative services with ATSC 3.0 becoming evolutionary instead of transformational. This is the single biggest structural lever in the whole ecosystem. Every previous TV transition (color, digital, spectrum repack) only really moved once there was a date on the calendar.

Gil Rudge, SVP, solutions and Americas sales, video, Harmonic: Without a hard transition deadline determined by the FCC, the market is likely to stagnate further, delaying broader consumer electronics support and slowing the shift to advanced ATSC 3.0 services and monetization opportunities for broadcasters.

Mark Simpson, president and CEO,  Triveni Digital: If the FCC does not establish a hard transition deadline, industry momentum around ATSC 3.0 could continue to slow. Clear regulatory direction will help bring focus to R&D and technology innovation, which are critical for strengthening the broadcast infrastructure and accelerating adoption of NextGen TV capabilities.

What happens if vendors do not adopt ATSC 3.0 tuners in their TV sets?

Paul Briscoe, chief architect, TAG Video Systems: Consumer electronics adoption is critical. If TV sets can’t receive ATSC 3.0, the infrastructure investments don’t reach viewers. It’s a classic chicken-and-egg: Broadcasters need viewers to justify content investment, but viewers need equipment to access that content. Breaking that cycle requires getting affordable receiving equipment into consumers’ hands whether through set manufacturers or converter boxes.

Edward Czarnecki, vice president, government and international, Digital Alert Systems: If TV manufacturers don’t broadly adopt ATSC 3.0 tuners, the transition could stall, not because the technology fails, but because the on-ramp never materializes for consumers. Still, however, there are increasingly affordable set-top receivers that can be linked to legacy TV sets — set top devices that frankly may have greater storage and processing power than a TV set. What makes ignoring ATSC 3.0 for TV manufacturers is that this isn’t just a U.S. story. In South Korea, Brazil, and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, over-the-air viewing is still a primary way people watch TV, not a legacy use case.

Fabio Murra, SVP, product and marketing, V-Nova: NextGen TV risks remaining available in the market but not available in the living room. Broadcasters can’t realistically move off ATSC 1.0, and the cost of running dual plants drags on. In the U.S., that’s why tuner adoption and transition timelines are so politically charged. The FCC has formally sought comment on NAB’s proposal for a date‑certain transition. Brazil is trying to avoid that trap with policy levers. PPB (Processo Produtivo Básico) is one mechanism Brazil uses to tie fiscal incentives to defined manufacturing steps and technical requirements, and it’s been used to drive mandated digital terrestrial reception capabilities into mass‑market televisions.

How are broadcasters managing risk while committing capital in a shifting regulatory environment?

Paul Briscoe, chief architect, TAG Video Systems: Broadcasters are making substantial infrastructure investments right now, but we know transmitter upgrades are expensive. They’re doing it because they see ATSC 3.0 as essential to reaching next-generation audiences. Traditional over-the-air TV viewership is aging, and the advertising model reflects that. ATSC 3.0 represents an opportunity to deliver the viewing experience and content quality that can attract younger demographics.

Do current regulations align with how stations want to use NextGen TV capabilities?

Paul Briscoe, chief architect, TAG Video Systems: Current regulations allow ATSC 3.0 to operate but don’t create the conditions for full transition. Broadcasters are operating dual transmission systems while waiting for market conditions to shift. The question is timeline: how long can they sustain this? If their viewers are simply moving from 1.0 to 3.0, they fail to gain revenue growth. They need to use 3.0 to evolve their target demography to bring new, younger viewers to new and 3.0-enabled content, not just move their current declining demo.

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Lynn Rowe, member, RIST Forum, founder and CEO, One World Technologies: No, current regulations do not reflect how broadcasters intend to deploy NextGen services. Legacy rule structures limit innovation in hybrid delivery, advanced data services and dynamic spectrum use. The RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport) Forum sees modernized policy as essential for realizing ATSC 3.0’s potential.