Commissioner Rosenworel Remarks "The Next Generation TV Transition"

Next week the agency plans to vote on an Order clearing the way for Next Generation Television. That means the agency is set to vote to on the introduction of ATSC 3.0. In other words, we are set to change the television standard yet again. I think the way the FCC plans to proceed is no great boon for consumers. It’s a tax on every household with a television. It’s time for the FCC to go back to the drawing board and find a less disruptive way to facilitate broadcast innovation. There’s a way to do it. It’s right there in the 2005 playbook.  What is missing here are the three critical features of the approach from 2005. First, there is no congressional mandate. What we have instead is a few unelected FCC officials making decisions about when you need to buy new televisions, acquire new equipment, and locate the HDMI port on the back of your set. Second, there is no program to defray the cost of the new devices, equipment, or television sets that consumers will need to purchase. Third, there is no test market or sandbox to experiment to understand our policies before unleashing them on a national scale.