Purposed FCC Mandate Will Force Consumers to Buy a NextGen TV

The Federal Communication System (FCC) is considering forcing TV manufacturers to only produce NextGen 4k (ATSC 3.0) televisions.  NextGen televisions cost about 20% more than High Definition HD televisions.  The top 500 market areas have very few or no NextGen broadcast.  The mandate also contradicts the administration’s de-regulatory priorities.

NAB in Favor of Forced Implementation
The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is pushing for the mandate.  The NAB’s ultimate goal is to sunset HD (ATSC 1.0) broadcast and force all TV broadcast and televisions to be NextGen (ATSC 3.0).  The NAB has been promoting NextGen TV for years, with little success. Now they're trying to force manufacturers and consumers to buy into it. It appears NextGen TV is a jobs program for software companies, and will be costly for consumers and smaller broadcasters.

The CTA is Against Forced Implementation
The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) position is the mandate will “hurt American consumers by forcing them to buy something they don’t want”.  Even households that don’t use broadcast TV will pay more for a television.  Low Power TV (30 miles range) broadcasters are also against the mandate.

The CTA also opposes allowing High Definition HD (ATSC 1.0) broadcast to encode MPEG-4 streaming. Older HD televisions would lose the TV channels.

Does the FCC Have This Authority?

The FCC’s authority to force NextGen television is in question. In the past Congress adopted the switch from analog to digital TV in 2009.  The CTA’s position is the FCC mandate is “ultimately a major question for Congress to decide”. 

Consumers
There is no public interest.  Less than 2% of TV broadcast channels are NextGen.  The number of new NextGen broadcast virtually stopped in 2025, nobody is watching.

Lack of consumer interest is due to cost, lackluster improvement, the content protection (DRM) feature, and endless software updates that are often buggy.  The obviously solution is continuing the voluntary transition to ATSC 3.0  Let the market decide, not special interest groups.