Washington, DC (September 9, 2026)—The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will honor ATSC on October 14 with a 2026 Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award for its development of the industry’s first fully IP-based broadcast standard to reach commercial scale.
The announcement from NATAS notes the collaborative effort that created the ATSC 3.0 standard, which gives TV broadcasters the capability of transmitting Ultra High-Definition programming with High Dynamic Range and other significant improvements.
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A statement from Emmy Award organizers reads, “Through a multiyear, consensus-based engineering, drafting and balloting process led by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), the standard has enabled new capabilities, including UHD, HDR, immersive audio and interactive services. ATSC 3.0 is now commercially deployed across the United States and internationally, reaching millions of households and driving significant changes across the broadcast equipment, consumer electronics and regulatory landscape.”
“This Emmy belongs to the entire ATSC community,” said Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC. “ATSC 3.0 is the result of extraordinary collaboration among hundreds of experts and organizations, past and present, who contributed their ideas, technical expertise, time and leadership over many years. This recognition from NATAS celebrates not simply a standard, but what our members can accomplish when an industry comes together around a shared vision for the future of broadcasting.”
Developed through ATSC’s open, consensus-driven standards process, ATSC 3.0 reimagines terrestrial broadcasting around an Internet Protocol-based architecture. Its design provides broadcasters with a platform for enhanced television services while creating a foundation for continued innovation as broadcast, broadband and other communications technologies evolve.
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ATSC will be honored at the Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Awards ceremony on Wednesday, October 14, 2026, at the Television Academy’s Saban Media Center in North Hollywood, CA.
The 2026 honor marks the fourth Emmy Award recognizing ATSC and its standards work. ATSC won previously for the ATSC digital television standard (2009), Active Format Description (2012), and A/85 Audio Loudness (2015), a technical foundation for addressing variations in television audio loudness and implementation of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act.
