ATSC

Noticeably heavier crowds filled a conference swinging back from the pandemic, while strategic partnerships between vendors signaled a new tack for the industry.

Sixty-six markets are now live with ATSC 3.0 service as consumer technology companies plan new products for over-the-air reception.

The early consumer experience of NextGen TV has been hampered by government regulations that make it hard for viewers to differentiate the new services from the legacy ATSC 1.0 programming already delivered over-the-air, according to broadcasters. Capacity is tight for both the 3.0 and 1.0 broadcasts, and broadcasters are aggressively using video compression to make it all work. L-r: E.W. Scripps’ Kerry Oslund, Pearl TV’s Anne Schelle, Fincons Group’s Francesco Moretti and ATSC’s Madeleine Noland (Alyssa Wesley photo).

Leaders from E.W. Scripps, ATSC, the Pearl Group and Fincons Group will look at how station groups will balance content, marketing, tech and revenue needs for both their NextGen TV and OTT platforms in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s TV2025: Monetizing the Future conference at the NAB New York Show on Oct. 19. Register here.

At last week’s ATSC conference in Detroit, Hyundai had news about an ATSC 3.0-equipped vehicle on the horizon and a bevy of new test results were shared. Above (l-r): Robert Foster of Auton, Kerry Oslund of E.W. Scripps, Coast-to-Coast test consulting engineer Merrill Weiss, Luke Fay of Sony

Samsung’s Dr. Youngkwon Lim receives the group’s highest honor, the 2022 Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award, while the Mark Richer Industry Leadership Medal goes to Sony Electronics for leadership in deployment of ATSC 3.0 technology.

With attendance predicted at around 60,000 with nearly 1,000 vendors, the NAB Show in Las Vegas next week will likely be down from its pre-pandemic numbers. However, vendors say that a more focused, less congested show might not be a bad thing.

After a whirlwind end to 2021, with a number of significant market launches announced in December alone, the Advanced Television Systems Committee will review progress of the NextGen TV deployments as well as a look ahead. With the recent addition of NextGen TV service in Los Angeles and Washington, ATSC 3.0 broadcasting now reaches nearly half of all American viewers, the ATSC announced this week.

Interested organizations may submit an intent-to-respond by Dec. 31.

In a hybrid in-person/virtual, two-day conference last week, ATSC celebrated 43 markets with NextGen TV on the air and dozens more soon to follow as well as successes in datacasting and auto data delivery trials. Among the panels was one on successful trials of 3.0 data delivery to automobiles in Phoenix and Santa Barbara, Calif., conducted by Sony in conjunction with Pearl TV and the News-Press Gazette group.

Advanced television’s growing pains — along with its growth trajectory — were evident during last week’s ATSC “Full Steam Ahead” annual member meeting and conference. Discussions veered from NextGen TV’s ability to make traditional broadcasting better to entry paths for entirely new data delivery ventures.

InterDigital’s Stein receives the Bernard J. Lechner Outstanding Contributor Award, while NAB’s Smith is presented the Mark Richer Industry Leadership Medal.

ATSC President Madeleine Noland weighs in on the technology’s COVID-hampered rollout, the importance of peripheral receiver devices for viewers’ embrace and prospective nontraditional uses cases for the spectrum as a broadcast revenue driver.

ATSC 3.0 deployment is well underway in the U.S., as the ATSC has shared that there will be more than 60 “first markets” — including the top 40 markets — that will bring the NextGen TV standard to its viewers in 2020. With these markets, ATSC says 3.0 will reach 70% of all viewers in the U.S. To date, six markets are “on the air” with 3.0 and four are readying broadcasts, having FCC permission but are not yet on air.

In the more than 25 years since ATSC 1.0 was introduced, Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards have completely transformed the U.S. broadcast industry, defining exactly how television signals are broadcast and interpreted. Without ATSC 1.0, the over-the-air broadcast industry would not have been viable, but this year marks the long-awaited introduction of the latest standard: ATSC 3.0.

During the Advanced Television Systems Committee’s virtual annual meeting, it was announced that Jae-Young Lee, senior research scientist at South Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, is the 2020 recipient of the Bernard J. Lechner Award honoring technical and leadership contributions to the organization. ATSC also announced the recipient of its new ATSC Richer Medal, named for past ATSC President Mark Richer — the Phoenix Model Market partnership.

Madeleine Noland discusses the impact of COVID-19 on deployment, NextGen TV presentations at NAB Show Express, new 3.0 planning teams and 5G.

The Advanced Television Systems Committee says it will issue a spring 2020 progress report on May 11, just ahead of the NAB Show Express virtual event, May 13-14.

Las Vegas and Portland, Ore. will light up their NextGen TV markets in June from their initially-slated late April launch, but the broadcasters and coalition driving the new industry standard forward say major launches will still move ahead this year. The launches will coincide with the arrival in retail stores of the first 3.0-capable sets. Above, six LG sets will bear the NextGen TV logo, including the 55-, 65- and 77-inch class GX Gallery Series 4K Ultra HD models.

The annual consumer electronics bazaar offered an important stage for fledgling NextGen TV this week, while also allowing varied glimpses at 5G, anticipatory technology and acres of beautiful new screens including the Samsung Sero that shifts from a horizontal to vertical perspective.

The senior technology and standards adviser for LG Electronics currently chairs the ATSC technology group that oversees the ATSC 3.0 next-generation broadcast standard. She will take over from Mark Richer, who is retiring from ATSC in May.

The recipients of TVNewsCheck’s inaugural Women in Technology Futurist Awards — the TVB’s Abby Auerbach and LG and ATSC’s Madeleine Noland — epitomize the quality of taking a long-range view of where the television industry should be moving and figuring out how to get it there.

The group’s work developing Next Gen TV powered by ATSC 3.0 caps the broadcasting veteran’s 40-year career. Fox’s Richard Friedel will lead the search committee to identify Richer’s successor.

The former chair of ATSC’s TG3 discusses the creation of ATSC 3.0 and what it promises. “The new functionality and the new kinds of businesses enabled by ATSC 3 are really necessary. Without doing that, broadcasting is probably going to disappear and be overtaken by all of the other options people have for getting information and entertainment. So, if broadcast doesn’t get nimble and take advantage of the things ATSC 3 offers, there’s a problem.”