ATSC 3.0

Next week’s CES in Las Vegas will once again take over the Strip with a sprawling, frenetic glimpse into tomorrow’s consumer technology. This time, NextGen TV will make its show floor debut, and hopes are high consumers will notice.

Some might say it’s too soon to begin selling the sizzle of Next Gen TV. Perhaps, but being early isn’t stopping T-Mobile from promoting its 5G service. No longer will it be enough for stations to promote upcoming programming; it will soon become as important, if not more so, to sell the benefits of the 3.0 wireless network — in other words “the sizzle.”

Next year should see broadcasters making advances in the continuing move to IP, greater use of cloud platforms and significant progress for two new wireless technologies: ATSC 3.0 and the various 5G services being rolled out by wireless carriers. Above, a Sony camcorder and prototype 5G transmitter were used to test camera backhauls over Verizon’s 5G network during a recent NBC NFL broadcast.

He takes on responsibility for overseeing Sinclair’s participation in the global ecosystem development of NextGen broadcasting’s direct-to-mobile broadcast-5G convergence. He will also support the company’s international strategic vision for spectrum utilization.

A founding father of DTV discusses the waterfront of issues facing the television industry.

Adam Symson, president and CEO of The E.W. Scripps Co., says leading the company isn’t a quarter-to-quarter proposition, but rather about taking a decades-long view. From that vantage, he sees a growing marketplace for podcasts and multicasting, along with a deepening the OTT sales business and ATSC 3.0’s longer-term potential as crucial fronts to buttress the company’s core broadcast business.

The newly-rechristened NextGen TV will start showing up in working sets at January’s CES with launches slated for the top 40 markets. But a ramp up to revenue will be slow going with advocates saying revenues are at least five years away. The TV2020 panel on the topic comprised (l-r): Anne Schelle, Pearl TV; John Hane, Spectrum Co.; and Joe Chinnici, Public Media Group. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

A Magid survey finds that the 3.0 standard’s new capabilities are seen as both an innovative service and a key feature for future consumer considering upgrading their TV receivers.

The Phoenix Model Market partners and Pearl TV today unveiled additional NextGen TV development resources for broadcasters and consumer technology companies.

The annual fall gathering will examine TV, satellite, online video, live events, podcasting, advertising, film, corporate A/V, production and post. In addition, held concurrently will be TVNewsCheck’s TV2020: Monetizing the Future conference and The Streaming Summit.

Commercial and public broadcasters are asking the FCC to relax its rules to allow them to deploy more transmitters at the edge of their service areas as they build out for ATSC 3.0.

A sequence of recent actions suggests that cable operators are pushing back against collaboration with the Advanced Television Standards Committee’s efforts to enable carriage of the format on MVPD systems. It is unclear whether they legitimately believe, as claimed, that it is “too early” to establish ATSC 3.0 (aka Next Gen TV) retransmission procedures or if the MVPDs are defensively rejecting the standard’s data transmission opportunities as competition to cable’s own digital agenda.

Fincons Group publishes a new white paper on ATSC 3.0 and lessons learned from the European Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV systems.

2020 is expected to start the deployment of ATSC 3.0 technology and services, and in preparation the Consumer Technology Association has announced that it has developed what it is calling the go-to market name and logo for the new technology, NEXTGEN TV. This name and logo will be used to identify devices that meet the ATSC 3.0 interoperability test specifications.

The former VP of strategy and business development for Tribune Broadcasting will lead the company’s next-generation television efforts including its ATSC 3.0 strategy and will help identify, develop and evaluate investment and partnership opportunities.

Executives driving ATSC 3.0’s implementation take on its costs and potential profits at TVNewsCheck’s annual TV2020: Monetizing the Future conference in New York in October.

In the six weeks since Charter Communications executives met with senior FCC staffers to explain their reluctance to carry ATSC 3.0 signals, a continuing flurry of discussions has simmered — usually couched in questions about why Charter picked this moment to voice its opposition to carrying the value-added broadcast signals.

Advanced compression (SHVC), multiplexing and technicolor SL-HDR1 together demonstrate impressive improvements in delivering high-quality video to fixed, mobile devices.

Money is on the minds of America’s low-power TV station owners these days. With the FCC announcing last month that it is now taking applications for repack reimbursement funds from the TV Broadcasters TV Relocation fund, LPTVs that have paid heavily to switch frequencies under the FCC’s spectrum repack are anxiously awaiting the check in the mail.

Hank Price: There is no question ATSC 3.0 will be a great quality advance for television stations. The picture alone makes the upgrade a must have, but it too will be challenged by a wireless competitor: 5G. 5G will empower two-way 3.0 services, but it will also function as a direct competitor, offering far more services than 3.0 alone is capable of.

Charter execs put on something of a full court press at FCC last week to talk down broadcaster’s ATSC 3.0 transition. They met with staffers in the Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology, as well as aides to four of the five commissioners, including the chairman. “We also discussed the consumer benefits of the ATSC 3.0 transition, noting that broadcasters have yet to define which among those possible uses of the new standard they are interested in pursuing,” Charter said in summarizing the meeting.

Tech vendors and broadcasters led by Sinclair and Weigel are developing ways to offer high-resolution TV and targeted advertising by layering broadband content on top of the basic ATSC 3.0 over-the-air signals.

Broadcasters are capitalizing on that simple equation as they try to squeeze every last advertising dollar out of their 6 MHz channels through multicasting. Hopped-up encoders and advanced video compression have also facilitated channel sharing in the wake of the incentive auction and will come in handy for stacking legacy ATSC 1.0 signals as broadcasters roll out ATSC 3.0.

The array of options for over-the-air 3.0 is dizzying. But with roughly 75% of TV households still subscribing to cable, satellite or telco services — and retransmission fees from providing their signals to such pay-TV operators making up a growing portion of broadcasters’ revenue — it’s clear that 3.0 needs to work with cable in order to be a long-term success.

It’s the first O&O station group to join coalition of commercial and public broadcasters, consumer electronics makers, tech companies and trade associations developing a voluntary advanced emergency messaging capability using ATSC 3.0.

The ATSC Next-Gen TV Conference in Washington this week covered a wide range of updates on what broadcasters have done, are doing and need to do to smoothly get the next-gen transmission standard on the air across the country.

Effective yesterday, May 28, the FCC is accepting applications for television stations to begin to convert to the next-generation TV transmission standard – ATSC 3.0 or “Nex Gen TV.” Last week, the commission issued a Public Notice announcing that the form (FCC Form 2100) necessary for stations to apply to transition to the new standard is now available for both full-power (Schedule B to Form 2100), low-power (Schedule D) and Class A TV stations (Schedule F).

Public Media Group was unveiled today at the ATSC’s 2019 Next Gen TV Broadcast Conference in Washington. It comprises Public Media Venture Group, a coalition of 31 noncommercial broadcasters with 117 stations, and Cleveland-based Osborn Engineering, among others.

The FCC says it will begin accepting applications from broadcasters to deploy ATSC 3.0 on May 28. The commission approved the standard in November 2017 but needed to revise a number of forms before it could begin accepting applications.

While conversations between broadcasters and car makers are just starting, ATSC 3.0 proponents say that given the three-to-five-year build cycle of a typical new model it’s crucial to get 3.0 receiver chips into car makers’ design plans by next spring so they’re ready to roll in 2024, by which time next-gen stations will be broadcasting across the U.S.

The Scripps MyNetworkTV affiliate will test ATSC 3.0 technology in collaboration with Graham Media and other Motor City broadcasters.

There may be a big silver lining to Sinclair’s loss of its proposed merger with Tribune. In its wake the group has shifted its strategy from TV station acquisition to nonbroadcast ventures like regional sports networks, OTT services and possibly some kind of national news service. And it’s continuing to lead the way toward ATSC 3.0, which it is convinced will multiply the value of broadcast spots through targeting, and enable lucrative new businesses like datacasting.