The National Association of Broadcasters’ big annual trade show, NAB, convenes every early April in Las Vegas. And dating back at least a decade, much of the discussion revolves around ATSC 3.0, the new (ish) technical standard intended to revitalize the broadcast medium.
With NAB kicking off Saturday (it runs April 5-9), the show’s curriculum will once again be full of technical sessions and panels focused on how to best utilize the Advanced Television Systems Committee 3.0 standard, also known as NextGen TV, that was first introduced in the U.S. on a voluntary bases back in 2017. Among the most high-profile at NAB 2025, top executives from the country’s biggest station groups, Sinclair, Nexstar, E.W. Scripps and Gray, will convene for a Monday-afternoon “fireside chat” to discuss EdgeBeam Wireless, a data-casting joint venture utilizing ATSC 3.0 and targeting business users.
“The ATSC 3.0 standard was specifically developed to future-proof over-the-air broadcasting,” wrote influential broadcast technologist Mark Aiken, commenting on LinkedIn last week ahead of NAB 2025. “It is the world’s first IP-based terrestrial transmission standard, designed to deliver robust, mobile, and datacast-capable services. Unlike its predecessor (ATSC 1.0), it’s a native digital transport platform that can rival and often outperform 5G broadcast in reach, spectral efficiency and cost.”
However, within the broadcast industry, there is a growing sense of impatience in regard to the impediments for wide scale adoption of ATSC 3.0. Broadcasters want the FCC to help them finally push NextGen over the finish line.
Noted Aitken: “Regulatory inaction continues to mire broadcasters in a simulcast requirement and ownership limitations that no longer reflect market realities or technological potential.”
There is hope among broadcasters that a new FCC regime, now led by President Donald Trump appointed chairman Brendan Carr, grasps the sense of urgency.
In February, the NAB, the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying org behind the big trade show, filed a 32-page petition to the FCC, outlining a plan to sunset ATSC 1.0 and transition stations in the top 55 U.S. markets, covering 70% of the population, to ATSC 3.0 by February 2028. The remaining markets would fall into line by 2030.
The petition noted that 14 million television sets have already been sold in the U.S. with the built-in circuitry to receive ATSC 3.0 signals. But pursuant to the All-Channel Receiver Act of 1961, the NAB wants the FCC to require that all TV sets sold in the U.S. feature an ATSC 3.0 by now later than February 2028.
“The bottom line is simple: Next Gen TV is here, and it is delivering real benefits,” the petition reads.” “But to realize its full promise, the FCC must take decisive action — just as it has in past technological shifts. The time for half-measures is over.”
In a note to investors sent last month, New Street Research policy analyst Blair Levin noted that Carr “likely favors” the petition. And Carr has already indicated himself a desire to “modernize” older FCC rules limiting station ownership and M&A capabilities in an era in which local broadcasters are competing against global behemoths like Google.
But regulators aren’t the only problem. Amid the chaotic backdrop of Trump’s global tariff war, it’s difficult to envision right now the FCC adding to taxation on imported Chinese smart TVs with a mandate of ATSC 3.0 tuners, Levin said.
The analyst also noted that the consumer electronics and pay TV industries will likely push back on any tuner mandates. Notably, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) already has resisted, labeling what the NAB proposed “an unnecessary regulatory burden.”