Groups Oppose ATSC 3.0 Tuner Mandate

Fourteen groups signed a letter Thursday urging the FCC to reject NAB’s push for an ATSC 3.0 tuner mandate. The groups -- which include Digital Liberty, Americans for Tax Reform, the James Madison Institute and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, as well as two individual signers -- said ATSC 3.0 already reaches three out of four Americans. “By any reasonable standard this is a success,” and broadcaster arguments that the 3.0 transition is in jeopardy without FCC intervention are “flimsy.” The agency “should maintain its voluntary, market driven adoption policy that has reached the vast majority of Americans, not embrace a mandate just to reach the small minority of markets broadcasters have struggled to penetrate,” the letter said. “While broadcasters operate under the strain of onerous regulations dating from the Second World War, new mandates on other technologies are not the solution.”