The Federal Communications Commission is considering letting TV broadcasters switch off the current broadcast standard (ATSC 1.0) and move to a new one (ATSC 3.0) on a timeline they set themselves. This could result not just in millions of TV sets becoming obsolete overnight, but could change the nature of broadcasting forever, from a free, widely-accessible service, to yet another proprietary streaming service. That’s why, along with Consumer Reports, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Media Council Hawaii, and Open Technology Institute at New America, we filed comments with the FCC arguing against this rushed transition.
Don’t get me wrong. ATSC 3.0 itself offers legitimate benefits over ATSC 1.0. In fact, the proposed transition corrects a mistake the FCC and the broadcast industry made in setting the ATSC 1.0 standard, where for short-sighted reasons, a technology was chosen that was known at the time to be worse for mobile reception, and harder to tune in to, among other things. Whoops. Turns out most people’s primary screen these days is the one they carry in their pocket.
So, new technology is good. ATSC 3.0 could bring better reception, better picture and audio, and even improved emergency alerts. TV viewers would benefit from all of this.
But the proposed transition would also let broadcasters cut off existing signals without any requirement that consumers are ready for the switch, that affordable equipment is available, or that anyone has even heard of “ATSC 3.0.” Even worse, while encryption is not necessary for the standard to work, the broadcasters have proposed to encrypt their signals with digital rights management (DRM) for the first time in the history of broadcasting. A private entity called ATSC 3.0 Security Authority (A3SA), controlled by broadcasters, would decide which devices can receive encrypted signals, and what they’re allowed to do with them. (To name one problem: Home recording is allowed by copyright law, but do you think the broadcast industry would have ever allowed it if it was given technological veto power?) A TV might even have the “NEXTGEN TV” ATSC 3.0 logo and still be unable to display encrypted local broadcasts because the two certifications (the certification that the TV can technically receive the signal, and the certification that it has permission to decrypt the signal) are separate. A3SA licenses also expire, so your TV could stop working for encrypted broadcasts even if the hardware is fine.
The DRM issue is probably the biggest obstacle to ATSC 3.0’s adoption and has driven thousands of people to file comments with the FCC objecting to it. Even broadcast industry insiders realize it’s a bad idea.
This isn’t how broadcast transitions are supposed to work. The 2009 digital transition had a timeline set by Congress, a government-funded coupon program for converter boxes, and extensive consumer education efforts funded by both Congress and industry. Congress even extended the date of the transition by six months to ensure the public was aware and these efforts to protect the public from the financial costs of the transition were effective. The FCC’s current proposal has none of that. Broadcasters could just flip a switch and people would lose access to their local stations.
There are other concerns: some ATSC 3.0 features require an internet connection. Your TV could be transmitting data back to broadcasters about what you watch, when, and for how long. This is unprecedented for free over-the-air broadcasting and raises questions about what privacy rules should apply.
And the new standard is enabling broadcaster consolidation in new ways, like EdgeBeam Wireless, a joint venture among four of the biggest station groups to provide commercial “datacasting” services – using broadcast spectrum for things like updating automotive firmware or digital billboards. Broadcast spectrum was given to industry for free, for the purpose of providing free over-the-air television. Using it to compete with mobile providers in the datacasting business, while locking viewers out of the primary broadcast stream with DRM, is not what anyone had in mind.
The D.C. Circuit held in 2005 that the FCC can’t require consumer electronics to incorporate the “broadcast flag,” a form of copy protection. It’s not obvious that the FCC can bless a transition that requires consumers to buy devices certified by a secretive entity to receive what is supposed to be free television over public airwaves. Encrypted, internet-dependent transmissions likely don’t even count as “broadcasting” under the Communications Act in the first place. In any event the Commission should not permit any transition that lets broadcasters turn public spectrum into a walled garden. In 2009, Congress was dealing with a financial crisis and understood that when elderly and low-income people suddenly lose the free over-the-air TV that they rely on for news and emergency communications, it would only add to the frustration of voters. Those demographic patterns persist today. A 2025 survey from Horowitz Research found that 26% of homes headed by someone 50 or older had antennas compared to 19% for the overall population. The income disparity is even starker: only 9% of homes with incomes greater than $100,000 a year had antennas, while 26% of those with incomes below $50,000 did. The people most likely to lose their TV signals from a botched transition are the same people least able to afford new equipment or streaming subscriptions. They are also the people most dependent on free, local television for news and emergency information. As Americans struggle through an affordability crisis in 2026, does the current Congress have the same understanding? Because better technology should mean more access for Americans, not less.