COVID-19 has had numerous tectonic effects on broadcast technology vendors, from accelerating a move to IP- and cloud-based systems to making for much uncertainty and probable consolidations ahead.

Latakoo’s newly launched Manifest integrates with AP ENPS to accelerate news production capabilities for broadcasters.

KATU, KOIN, KGW, KPTV, KOPB, KRCW and KPDX began broadcasting Tuesday with NextGen TV technology.

The Consumer Technology Association’s annual electronics gathering in Las Vegas during the first week in January will be virtual in light of the coronavirus pandemic. CTA CEO Gary Shapiro says: “Technology helps us all work, learn and connect during the pandemic — and that innovation will also help us reimagine CES 2021 and bring together the tech community in a meaningful way.”

This year’s challenge will fund teams to build a working prototype that expands and enhances remote television and radio operations and present it at next year’s NAB Show.

Broadcasters are prepared to stick with their remote production workflows for the long haul as the pandemic stretches on with no end in sight. A TVNewsCheck webinar last week found they’re continuing to try to bring as much of the studio into staffers’ homes as possible, not only for anchors and reporters but producers, director, editors and graphic artists, too.

TVNewsCheck will present a virtualized 10^th Annual Women in Technology Awards presentation ceremony and immediately after it, a “Predictions for 2021” panel session featuring all six honorees talking about how widespread remote production and other developments this year are likely to affect technology in 2021. Honorees are (top, l-r): SMPTE’s Barbara Lange, WarnerMedia’s Lisa Pedrogo, Perspective Media’s Janet Gardner, (bottom, l-r): Avid’s Kate Ketcham, Latakoo’s Jade Kurian and Walt Disney Co.’s Sally Hattori. To attend the event on Monday, Oct. 19, at 4 p.m. ET, please register here.

Around 10 markets should be on-air with 3.0 broadcasts by the end of the third quarter and perhaps 20 by year’s end, according to representatives of Pearl TV and BitPath. Broadcasters are also exploring the full capabilities of the NextGen standard with several new initiatives this summer, including the launch of a NextGen-capable smartphone and a trial of advanced alerting capabilities in Washington, D.C. Above, one of the six 2020 LG OLED sets that have earned the NextGen TV logo from the Consumer Technology Association.

The long-time broadcasting executive returns to Hearst’s Boston ABC affiliate to lead broadcast engineering and operations, succeeding Greg Turner.

TVNewsCheck will consider how news organizations are turning remote production outposts into permanent at-home studios, while Sinclair will present episode two of a series on monetizing NextGen TV. SMPTE has two events this week, MFM continues a series of for-credit sessions for finance managers and SVG presents its annual Sports Content Management conference in virtual form. For more events, plus dates, times and registration links, visit TVNewsCheck’s Virtual Events Directory.

Leading executives in the spot TV advertising ecosystem will talk about ways to entice a larger number of marketers to invest in local TV during a TVNewsCheck webinar on Aug. 6. The event, which will focus on short- and long-term issues facing the industry, will feature (top, l-r): Frank Friedman, E.W. Scripps; Jane Meyerson, ICON International; Joe Cerone, Zenith; (bottom, l-r):  Rob Weisbord, Sinclair Broadcast Group; Mark Gorman, Matrix Solutions and Ted Kramer, ProvantageX.  Register here.

The FCC is trying to remove a potential barrier to the deployment of the ATSC 3.0 technical standard by TV broadcasters by ruling that a broadcaster’s lease of spectrum to a third party for provision of ancillary, non-broadcast services does not trigger attribution for the FCC’s broadcast ownership rules. Comments on the matter are due Aug. 17, replies on Aug. 31.

TV salespeople have been working from home since March, but the technology necessary for the entire sales workflow to be cloud-based is still developing. Both WideOrbit and Imagine Communications are transitioning existing products to the cloud and developing new cloud-based software.