June 24, 2026 · 9:20 PM
The TV Standard That Almost Locked In Your Screen
In 1996, the FCC spent 229 days preparing to mandate exactly how American digital TV must scan every pixel. Five weeks before the deadline, Microsoft, Apple, Intel, and Compaq convinced the broadcasters to drop Table 3 — and the format war quietly ended with a three-paragraph letter.
For 229 days in 1996, the FCC was poised to mandate every detail of America's digital TV standard — including locking broadcasters into specific video formats. A last-minute compromise letter, signed just five weeks before the deadline, changed everything.
The "almost": The FCC's Fifth NPRM (May 9, 1996) proposed requiring all 18 ATSC video format constraints — including interlaced scanning formats — as a binding federal mandate. Had it passed as written, American television would have been legally locked to interlaced 1080i, making digital TV incompatible with computers.
The coalition that stopped it: Microsoft, Apple, Intel, and Compaq formed CICATS in July 1996 to oppose the format mandate. They ran full-page Washington Post ads under the banner "Americans for Better TV." Broadcasters counter-organized as "Citizens for HDTV."
The compromise: On November 27, 1996, NBC's Michael Sherlock, CEMA's Gary Shapiro, and Intel's Paul Misener signed a three-paragraph letter to FCC Commissioner Susan Ness. The core sentence: "The FCC should adopt… the voluntary ATSC DTV Standard (A/53), except for the video format constraints described in Table 3."
What we got instead: The FCC adopted ATSC on December 24, 1996 — without format requirements. The result: ABC chose 720p, CBS and NBC chose 1080i. Decades of format fragmentation followed. As the New York Times reported that day, FCC Chairman Reed Hundt called it "a huge shot in the arm to free, over-the-air, digital television."
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