Sinclair Goals: U.S. Reach, Mobile Users, 3.0

This week’s news that Sinclair Broadcast Group is acquiring Tribune Media will extend Sinclair’s footprint significantly and play a key role in helping the broadcast group deploy the national ATSC 3.0 network it envisions — provided the FCC authorizes the next-gen TV standard.

“The acquisition will enable Sinclair to build ATSC 3.0 (Next Generation Broadcast Platform) advanced services, scale emerging networks and national sales, and integrate content verticals,” Sinclair President-CEO Chris Ripley said in a joint press announcement of the deal.

While significant, the Tribune acquisition is only one piece in a much larger jigsaw puzzle Sinclair is assembling to transform TV into a competitor that can win in the fight for viewers on the go.

“If anyone wonders why we have a mobile-first strategy,” says Mark Aitken, Sinclair VP of Advanced Technology, “one view of this [chart] makes it very clear that the dollars are in mobile.”

The chart, part of a May 8 Business Insider article entitled “One chart proves that Facebook is mobile first,” shows that while Facebook ad revenue from the desktop has remained flat at about $5 billion for the past four years, mobile ad revenue has skyrocketed to $25 billion.

National reach with 3.0 will give Sinclair entre into offering many new possible services to a public enamored by mobile media, such as an OTA-delivered 100-channel rival to SiriusXM, various telematics services to deliver data to car dashboards, file over-the-air (FOTA) software updates and ultimately 3D mapping as a baseline requirement for driverless vehicles.

With or without the Tribune acquisition, Sinclair has been at work building a national footprint.

In mid-March, Sinclair and Nexstar Media Group signed a memorandum of understanding forming a TV spectrum aggregation and monetization consortium that will reach more than 60% of the nation with 3.0 services.

Not only does the consortium extend the reach of Nexstar and Sinclair, but it also helps both assemble virtual duopolies in many markets where each owns only a single station — something that positions both broadcasters at “the best starting point” to launch 3.0 nationwide, he says.

Aitken expects the consortium to grow. “I can guarantee there will be many more members of the consortium.”

Already Sinclair and Nexstar are discussing how best to equip their stations affected by the TV spectrum repack to deliver future 3.0-based services, including mobile.

“The best example is some level of vertical polarization in an antenna,” says Aitken. While the broadcast relocation fund won’t reimburse the expense of an equipment upgrade, it makes sense to pay the incremental difference if mobile is a priority, he says.

Other technical considerations under discussion among the broadcasters include ensuring sufficient total power output from the transmitter for a V-pol enabled antenna, studio-to-transmitter link requirements for 3.0 and the best use of SFNs, he adds.

Even before forming the consortium, Sinclair was on the prowl to extend coverage. In November 2016, David Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair, offered to strike deals with smaller broadcasters at the TV2020 Conference in New York City to finance their deployment of 3.0 in exchange for a portion of their digital pipe.

The $3.9 billion acquisition (and $2.6 billion debt assumption) of Tribune’s 42 TV stations in 33 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Dallas, will supercharge Sinclair’s efforts for national reach.

It pushes coverage to a nebulous threshold between 70% and 80% of the nation that program syndicators and others want “to see in terms of fulfilling contractual obligations to call a show a national show,” Aitken says.

Other possible acquisitions may be in the works for Sinclair. “I expect the consolidation activity will continue for many more months,” Aitken says. Talks put on hold due to the FCC spectrum auction “can start up again,” he adds.

Beyond acquisitions, spectrum aggregation and the technology needed to transmit mobile television services, Sinclair has been busy putting other essential pieces of the next-gen TV jigsaw puzzle into place.

In March, ONE Media 3.0, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sinclair, contracted with Indian chip designer Saankhya Labs to develop a cognitive software defined radio chipset to identify and receive on the fly any of the world’s TV standards, including 3.0.

Work is progressing on the design, says Aitken, who adds its size, power consumption and reception profile characteristics were selected for use in mobile consumer electronics.

The idea behind the chip is to make it easier for consumer electronics companies to agree to add 3.0 receivers to future mobile devices.

Sinclair is also at work with Imagine Communications on a content generation engine that will be used to assemble and deliver personalized programming and advertising via the next-gen TV standard, says Aitken.

For Aitken, seeing all of these pieces fall into place is the fulfillment of a vision Sinclair’s Smith laid out some 20 years ago, he says.

In the early days of ATSC 1.0, Smith wondered if it would be possible to transmit TV to people on the go, Aitken says.

However, the results of an ATSC 1 reception field study Aitken conducted for Sinclair were disappointing.

“What came out of that study was an abysmal portrayal of 8VSB reception — ease of reception as we called it,” he says.

At about the same time, however, Aitken and others at Sinclair witnessed OFDM — which today is at the heart of 3.0 — being demoed as part of the DVB-T standard at the 1999 NAB Show.

“We saw with OFDM in DVB-T the ability to do mobile television,” he says.

In 3.0, mobile TV in the United States will soon become a reality, he says. While it continues to remain unclear exactly what mobile services will be rolled out, Aitken is clear about the bigger picture of what the next-gen TV standard will enable. “Here is what I can guarantee: That we will use our licensed broadcast spectrum to the maximum value of consumers, investors and shareholders.”

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