Authorizing Permissive Use of the “Next Generation” Broadcast Television Standard

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 73 and 74</CFR> <DEPDOC>[MB Docket No. 16-142; FCC 25-72; FR ID 317663]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Authorizing Permissive Use of the “Next Generation” Broadcast Television Standard</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) seeks comment on proposed rule changes that would support and accelerate the nation's ongoing market-based broadcast television transition to ATSC 3.0 (or Next Gen TV). The document tentatively concludes that the Commission should eliminate the simulcasting requirement for stations that transition to 3.0, while continuing to permit simulcasting on a voluntary, simplified basis. It also seeks comment on a range of closely related issues and other matters touching on the Next Gen TV transition. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before January 20, 2026; reply comments are due on or before February 18, 2026. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before January 20, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). You may submit comments, identified by MB Docket No. 16-142, by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. <E T="03">All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission.</E> • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. • <E T="03">People with Disabilities.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530. Comments regarding the PRA proposed information collection requirements. “Currently under 60-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. Your comment must be submitted into <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov</E> per the above instructions for it to be considered. In addition to submitting in <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov,</E> also send a copy of your comment on the proposed information collection to Cathy Williams, FCC, via email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> and to <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> Include in the comments the OMB control number as shown in the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For additional information on this proceeding, contact Evan Baranoff, <E T="03">Evan.Baranoff@fcc.gov,</E> of the Media Bureau, Policy Division, (202) 418-2120. Direct press inquiries to <E T="03">MediaRelations@fcc.gov.</E> For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Cathy Williams, Office of Managing Director, at (202) 418-2918 or <E T="03">Cathy.Williams@fcc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Fifth Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">FNPRM</E> ), FCC 25-72, adopted on October 28, 2025 and released on October 29, 2025. The full text of this document is available electronically via the FCC's Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) website at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-72A1.pdf</E> or via the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) website at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs</E> (search using docket number). (Documents will be available electronically in ASCII, Microsoft Word, and/or Adobe Acrobat.) <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document contains possible new or modified information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, Public Law 104-13. Public and agency comments are due January 20, 2026. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> Comments should address: (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's burden estimates; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on the respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) way to further reduce the information collection burden on small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), the Commission seeks specific comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <E T="03">OMB Control Number:</E> 3060-1254. <E T="03">Title:</E> Next Gen TV/ATSC 3.0 Local Simulcasting Rules; 47 CFR 73.3801 (full-power TV), 73.6029 (Class A TV), and 74.782 (low-power TV) and FCC Form 2100 (Next Gen TV License Application). <E T="03">Form No.:</E> FCC Form 2100 (Next Gen TV License Application). <E T="03">Type of Review:</E> Revision of currently approved collection. <E T="03">Respondents:</E> Business or other for-profit entities, state, local, or tribal government and not for profit institutions. <E T="03">Number of Respondents and Responses:</E> 1,422 respondents; 11,460 responses. <E T="03">Estimated Time per Response:</E> 0.017-8 hours. <E T="03">Frequency of Response:</E> On occasion reporting requirement; Recordkeeping requirement; Third party disclosure. <E T="03">Obligation to Respond:</E> Required to obtain or retain benefits. Statutory authority for this collection of information is contained in sections 1, 4, 7, 301, 303, 307, 308, 309, 316, 319, 325(b), 336, 338, 399b, 403, 614, and 615 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 151, 154, 157, 301, 303, 307, 308, 309, 316, 319, 325(b), 336, 338, 399b, 403, 534, and 535. <E T="03">Total Annual Burden:</E> 3,852 hours. <E T="03">Total Annual Cost:</E> $147,000. <E T="03">Needs and Uses:</E> The <E T="03">FNPRM</E> proposes to permit simulcasting stations, upon notice to the Commission, to encode multicast 1.0 streams using MPEG-4. <E T="03">Synopsis:</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. America's television broadcasters are in the midst of a transition. They are shifting to a new standard in broadcasting that can deliver significant and new benefits to consumers across the country. Indeed, Next Gen TV, also called ATSC 3.0, represents the future of broadcast television. Next Gen TV promises to revitalize the nation's free, local, over-the-air (OTA) television service, which serves as a vital source of local news and information for many Americans, by enabling significant improvements in picture quality, audio clarity, interactive features, and public safety and accessibility capabilities. We expect this will enable broadcasters to remain competitive in the video marketplace for years to come. To achieve this future, broadcasters have undertaken a complex and challenging technological transition without the allocation of additional spectrum. Broadcasters have made progress toward this transition, having launched ATSC 3.0 (or “3.0”) service in more than 90 markets that include more than 70 percent of the country's population. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Actions proposed today support continued progress in the ongoing transition to ATSC 3.0. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Based on a review of internal Commission data. This data reflects 3.0 services offered by over-the-air television stations, but does not reflect the adoption of 3.0 by other stakeholders ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> consumers, manufacturers, and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs)). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 169k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━