In late September, what appeared to be bleak news for the moribund ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard broke when Korean CE giant LG said it would stop making smart TVs with ATSC 3.0 tuners because of what it described as patent issues.
With LG complaining to the FCC about how the ATSC 3.0 patent pool was aligned and participated with, our sibling publication, TechRadar, wondered at the time if the small group of other smart TV makers that are including ATSC 3.0 tuners in their sets — Samsung, Sony and Hisense — might also give up.
Also Read: ATSC 3.0: Everything You Need to Know About the Broadcast Industry's 'NextGen' Technology Standard
So far, that hasn't happened. And on Monday, at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, the ATSC 3.0 community even welcomed a major new constituent, TCL, which introduced several North American smart TV product lines featuring so-called NextGen TV tuners.
TCL, which joined the Via Licensing Alliance's ATSC 3.0 patent pool back in September, will include the tuners in Google TV-powered "S Series" and "Q Series"
The TCL product introduction was actually announced by the Advanced Television Systems Committee itself, which also said Monday that ATSC 3.0’s reach has been extended to 75% of U.S. TV households.
The group also noted new product introductions from ADTH, Stavix, Zapperbox and Zinwell. The committee is expecting overall ATSC 3.0 technology sales to jump 45% in 2024.
An ATSC 3.0 spokesman told Next TV that he expects LG to eventually resolve its patent concerns and return to the NextGen TV fold. For now, LG is still selling inventoried 2023 sets with ATSC 3.0 tuners. And it is a financial contributor to the ATSC CES exhibit this week.
