YouTubers Urge FCC to Take Action on ATSC 3.0 DRM

The FCC should look into and discourage local broadcasters from encrypting their ATSC 3.0 signals with DRM, said a filing from YouTube personality Tyler Kleinle, aka Antenna Man, posted in docket 16-142 Tuesday. “That broadcasters are behaving this badly so early in the launch of NextGen TV has me deeply concerned about the future of free over-the-air TV,” said the filing. Antenna Man and fellow YouTuber Lon Seidman asked their viewers to sign a petition and file comments at the agency against broadcasters encrypting their signals with DRM. Broadcasters have begun encrypting their signals, though the makers of external ATSC 3.0 tuners haven’t completed a certification process that would allow those devices to decode the signal, thus cutting off users of those devices from the 3.0 signal, the filing said. Broadcasters in ATSC 3.0 consortium Pearl TV “do not seem to have any care for antenna viewers who lost access to local channels because of DRM encryption,” said the filing. “The certification process for a tuner to decode DRM appears to be extremely complex and expensive,” the filing said. Pearl TV didn’t comment. “Free over-the-air TV is something that should be free and open to the public on any tuner available without encryption,” said Antenna Man in a video urging the public to put pressure on the agency.