Many MVPDs are getting direct fiber feeds, either of the ATSC 1.0 broadcast, or a different feed, so there's really no connection between ATSC 1.0 broadcast OTA and MVPDs having a feed to broadcast.
Well, a given station's ATSC 3.0 feed is actually broadcasting on a separate station license and so the MVPD carriage contract would have to be for that separate station if they wanted the 3.0 feed. For instance, the local Nexstar-owned ABC affiliate here in Nashville is WKRN. They broadcast their 1.0 feed on that actual station, under their FCC license for UHF 27. But through a complicated station sharing arrangement between Nexstar and Sinclair, WKRN's 3.0 feed of their main .1 (ABC) channel is carried on Sinclair's WNAB, under their FCC license for UHF 30.
There's been talk about MVPDs such as Comcast eventually licensing and carrying local stations' superior 3.0 feeds instead of, or in addition to, their standard 1.0 feeds. But if they did that, the contract would have to be for whichever specific 3.0 station actually carries those feeds (in the example above, WNAB).
Now, all that said, I keep saying that there's really no reason for MVPDs to ever bother specifically licensing 3.0 stations anyhow, because local stations already can and do offer higher quality versions of their main 1.0 feed if they have in agreement in place with MVPDs to do so. During both recent Olympics, in fact, we saw various NBC affiliates offering certain MVPDs, including Comcast and YouTube TV, live 4K feeds! They were NOT sending out 4K on their 3.0 OTA feeds but they
were sending it to select MVPDs who had the internal distribution capabilities to offer it to their customers (and who, I'm sure, were paying those NBC affiliates extra $ for the enhanced quality).
I think we could just end up with both for a long time. Although by 2030, I'm not sure there's even going to be much OTA viewership left.
I made some long posts recently on the ATSC 3.0 thread over at AVS Forum about where I now see all this going. But to summarize, I think that cable TV as we know it will largely cease to be sold in the latter half of this decade. Existing customers would likely be grandfathered in on their channel bundle packages but what we'll see being sold going forward instead will just be media companies' own direct-to-consumer apps, which will include live streams of their most popular linear channels. So Disney+, for instance, would include live streams of ABC (national feed), FX, Freeform, Disney Channel, Disney Jr., and Nat Geo. (BTW, well before this time, Hulu will cease to exist as a separate app/service and instead just be the adult general entertainment content hub inside Disney+.) HBO Max (or whatever it's called by then) would include live streams of CNN, HBO, TBS, TNT, Discovery, HGTV, Food, and TLC. Less popular/secondary channels might be shut down, with their content concentrated onto the main linear channels, which would then be forced to air fewer reruns.
The on-demand and linear channel content from all the various apps you subscribe to will be commingled on the home screen of whatever streaming OS you use, whether it's built into your smart TV or comes from an external box/stick/dongle: Fire TV, Google TV, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, LG TV, etc. There will be one major OS (currently branded as Flex) owned and operated jointly by the two largest cable broadband operators, Comcast and Charter. Whichever OS you use will allow you to download the apps and subscribe through their app store, with combined billing of all the services you subscribe to (although you'll also have the option of subscribing to those services directly through their own website, perhaps at a discount since that will mean the service doesn't have to give a cut of your subscription fees to the app store/biller). The UI of all these various streaming OSes will include an aggregate channel grid guide that will pull in all the different linear channels you get, both paid and free, from the various underlying apps you have installed.
Now, if you're using a smart TV with a built-in OTA tuner and a connected antenna, yes, its aggregated grid guide will show your local OTA stations, each of which will still have a combination of national network content and local station content (e.g. national news in the morning, local news in the afternoon, syndicated shows after that, then local and national news early evening, followed by national primetime, etc.). But in terms of these new app-originated streaming channels, the national vs. local content will be disaggregated. For instance, there will be a national live stream of the ABC network coming from one underlying app (Disney+) and a separate live stream from Nashville's News 2 (WKRN) featuring their local news and lifestyle content 24/7 coming from their own Nexstar-operated app. The networks need their local affiliates in the traditional TV era. In the direct-to-consumer streaming era, they do not.
Now let's take the logic a step further. Why would Disney keep any of their high-value content on ABC? Actually, even now, they really don't. They moved Monday Night Football from ABC behind their cable and OTT paywalls, ESPN and ESPN+ respectively, awhile ago. I think we'll see CBS, NBC and Fox do pretty much the same thing. (Fox doesn't have an OTT subscription service, so they'll likely just sell off the streaming rights to their live sports to third parties such as Apple TV+, Prime Video, ESPN+, etc.) After that, what's left on the broadcast networks? An assortment of relatively low-cost content. At the high end, cost-wise, you'll see filmed shows with lesser-known actors who don't command big paydays. So even that stuff won't be
too pricey to produce. At the low end, you'll see lots of cheap game/competition/reality/talk shows. In between, scripted animation, which is still fairly cheap.
In other words, the big media companies will have restructured the cost basis of their broadcast nets so that they can be profitable as totally free, ad-supported ventures. Which will be necessary, because by that point they'll be receiving relatively little retrans money from their local affiliates, and that revenue source will eventually dwindle to nothing. So we'll see a live national feed of ABC not just in the paid Disney+ app but also in a future FAST (free ad-supported TV) app from Disney. (My suggestion: call it Magic. "What happens when Disney brings some of the world's most beloved content to your home, totally free? Magic.") We'll see a live national feed of CBS not just in Paramount+ but also in their free Pluto TV app. Likewise with NBC and Fox. (Fox will probably never have an SVOD but they'll put their Fox network in their FAST app Tubi.) It will be in those companies' interests to maximize viewership, and therefore ad revenue, of their cheap broadcast content, so why make folks bother with an OTA antenna to watch it? Just stream it for free, live and on-demand, with unskippable ads.
The high-value content, including most sports and filmed series and movies with big stars, will be exclusive to those companies' paid SVODs, e.g. Disney+, Paramount+, etc.
If it does pan out this way, then by the time we get to 2030, who's going to bother with an OTA antenna if all that same content can be streamed, live and on-demand, for free, with equal or better PQ and without reception problems? There will be hardly any US homes by 2030 who don't have broadband service with unlimited data or at least a sufficiently high data cap to allow for all their video viewing.
I think it'll be pretty clear by 2025 to anyone in the industry with a brain that this is the way it's all heading. Which is why ATSC 3.0 will never really take off. By that point, I think you'll see smart TV manufacturers stop paying extra to include a separate 3.0 tuner in their TVs. Consumers aren't really clamoring for them. The broadcast networks aren't ever going to really support the full capabilities of 3.0. But meanwhile, you can already watch select CBS series next-day in 4K HDR on Paramount+. The big media companies, who are the ones who really have the power in this equation, understand that the successor to ATSC 1.0 isn't ATSC 3.0. It's their own FAST and SVOD apps, where they control the UI, where they collect the data, and where they don't have to share the subscription or advertising revenue with local station owners like Nexstar, Sinclair, Scripps, etc.
