The National Association of Broadcasters has asked the FCC not to back SiliconDust's call for ATSC 3.0 stations to switch off content protection for the November 17 nationwide EAS test. In an ex parte filing, NAB said the request "is both unnecessary and counterproductive to the purpose of a nationwide EAS test." The test is scheduled for 2:20 p.m. Eastern.
SiliconDust, the Glendale, Ariz., maker of HDHomeRun network TV tuners, had urged several TV station groups to disable Digital Rights Management encryption on their NextGen TV services. The company argued this would help alert messages reach every viewer.
Alison Martin, NAB's VP of innovation and strategy in its legal and regulatory affairs department, wrote that the national test is meant to check the system from top to bottom under conditions as close to a real alert as possible. She said changing station settings for the test would create artificial conditions. If content protection actually gets in the way of EAS on ATSC 3.0, she argued, the test should expose that problem rather than hide it.
NAB also said SiliconDust's concern rests on a mistaken premise. According to the filing, broadcasters insert EAS messages on both their ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 services as FCC rules require. NAB said receivers that cannot decrypt a protected 3.0 service cannot show that programming at any time, alert or not, and called that a result of manufacturers' design choices. It added that "the overwhelming majority of ATSC 3.0 receivers support content-protected programming."
Martin said the letter recasts long-running objections to ATSC 3.0 encryption as an EAS issue, and that NAB and others have already answered those arguments in earlier filings. NAB wants the test to run under ordinary operating conditions.
The FCC has not said whether it will respond to either filing before the test. TV stations should confirm their EAS equipment and their ETRS filing obligations are in order ahead of November 17.