I’ve been spending the last few days reading through the filings in the FCC’s ATSC 3.0 docket now that the comment period has closed, trying to understand how broadcasters, device makers, and industry groups are framing the next phase of the over-the-air television transition.
While I was doing that, I went upstairs to check on my own ADTH tuner, a device that’s supposed to handle encrypted ATSC 3.0 channels without needing an internet connection. It wasn’t working. Encrypted channels wouldn’t tune at all, and the box was throwing content protection errors that hadn’t been there before.
That problem sent me down a familiar path. ATSC 3.0 is the planned successor to today’s ATSC 1.0 broadcast standard, and on paper it brings technical improvements. In practice, the transition has been complicated by broadcasters choosing to encrypt free, over-the-air signals. That decision has narrowed consumer choice and added layers of complexity that simply didn’t exist before. The industry’s assurances that this system is mature and reliable don’t line up with what I’m seeing in my own home.
One of the filings I reviewed came from ADTH itself. The company strongly supports the transition and argues that there are no real technical barriers to consumer devices receiving encrypted broadcasts. Encryption and digital rights management, they say, are routine in modern electronics.
That’s hard to square with my experience. After repeated errors, I tried a factory reset. Instead of fixing anything, the device dropped into a boot loop, endlessly scanning channels and rebooting. Even with an internet connection restored, it refused to recover. At that point it stopped being a TV tuner and effectively became a brick.
What made this more than a minor inconvenience was timing. We were in the middle of a significant snowstorm, the kind of situation where over-the-air television has historically been a reliable source of local information. Because the encrypted channels wouldn’t tune, that information simply wasn’t available on this device. And this doesn’t appear to be an isolated issue. I’ve heard from viewers and seen reports on Reddit and AVS Forum from people around the country whose boxes stopped working around the same time. Some even reported that disconnecting the internet made their tuners work again, which raises uncomfortable questions about how these systems are actually operating.
At the same moment consumer devices were failing, the group that oversees the encryption system, the A3SA, told the FCC it has seen no evidence of approved devices failing to work with encryption. They also suggested that any reported issues are generally resolved with firmware updates. That response glosses over a basic problem: firmware updates require an internet connection. Requiring internet access just to watch free, over-the-air television undermines one of broadcast TV’s core purposes, while adding cost and fragility.
The A3SA also describes itself as a “neutral, standards-based administrator.” From what I’ve seen, that neutrality is questionable. The group is made up of major broadcasters and has effectively decided which manufacturers can and can’t participate. SiliconDust’s HDHomeRun, a widely used network tuner, has been denied approval, while other devices with similar technical characteristics have been cleared.
Another theme running through the filings is piracy. Broadcasters cite tens of billions of dollars in losses and argue that encryption is necessary to protect their content. When you dig into the examples they reference, though, the picture changes. One high-profile piracy case they cite involved stealing encrypted signals from cable and satellite providers, not rebroadcasting free over-the-air signals.
Encryption, it appears, inconveniences only those who are viewing content lawfully – not the pirates.
Broadcasters also warn that without encryption they risk losing premium sports programming. Yet recent rights deals tell a different story. The NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, and major college conferences have all committed to long-term agreements that keep marquee events on broadcast television for years to come. These deals were struck without any guarantee that over-the-air signals would be encrypted, which undercuts the argument that encryption is essential to retaining top-tier content.
The FCC has also raised questions in this filing round about consumer rights, particularly the long-standing right for consumers to record broadcasts at home for personal use. That right was established decades ago, but encryption complicates it. Circumventing DRM, even for lawful personal recording, can be illegal. The A3SA argues that internal rules already protect home recording, but those assurances are tied to current simulcasting requirements that may disappear. Once they do, the only remaining safeguards would be voluntary commitments from broadcasters whose financial incentives don’t necessarily align with consumer flexibility.
Underlying all of this is a business reality that the National Association of Broadcasters acknowledged more directly in its own filing. Encryption is about protecting retransmission fees, the charges cable and streaming providers pay to carry broadcast channels. Those fees have risen sharply over the years, and making free reception less convenient creates pressure to return to paid services. That strategy may make sense from an industry perspective, but it runs counter to the idea of broadcast spectrum as a public resource.
There’s also nothing in the current framework that limits encryption to a single system. The ATSC admits in their filing that multiple, incompatible schemes could emerge, adding yet another layer of confusion for viewers and device makers alike. At that point, the promise of ATSC 3.0 as a straightforward upgrade starts to look like something else entirely.
After reading the docket and dealing with a tuner that worked one day and failed the next, I’m left with the sense that encryption over the public airwaves is creating problems faster than it’s solving them. Broadcasters were granted access to spectrum at no cost, with the understanding that they would serve the public interest. Turning free television into a fragile, tightly controlled experience doesn’t seem consistent with that mission. I plan to file a reply in the FCC proceeding during the response window, and there’s more in these filings worth unpacking.
Stay tuned for more and see my full ATSC playlist here!