At the NAB Show in Las Vegas last month, Pearl TV, the consortium of broadcasters, manufacturers and industry advocates showcased prototypes of new converter boxes that would allow consumers to upgrade to ATSC 3.0 (aka NextGen TV) without having to purchase a new TV or one of the more expensive converter/DVR boxes currently available.

TV Tech Content Director Tom Butts recently discussed the status of the new campaign and reaction at NAB Show with Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle. Here is an edited transcript.

TV Tech: Can you give us an update on what Pearl and the ATSC were showing in terms of NextGen TV advances at the NAB Show?
Anne Schelle: Pearl was focused on the converter box program and meeting with SOC companies that we invited to come to the show, as well as some of the current box makers and others that would be part of the ecosystem. The FCC also had an opportunity to come by and learn about the program. So there were great conversations, and it's just continuing to move the program along in terms of the mechanics, with the special pricing conversations, with the ecosystem that would be involved with making the box, the testing, certification, all of those business parts of the program.

TVT: What's the biggest challenge right now that you face? Is it time or technology?
AS: We’re waiting on a signal from the FCC, which we're hopeful is coming soon. We were also having conversations about just updating the whole [3.0] system, the transmission vendors and everybody that's involved in selling equipment to support a transition to the boxes themselves. And the more time lags on this, resources get reallocated, investments get reallocated. So we've been expressing the urgency to the FCC.

TVT: Will you need government support to bring it to a sub-$60 price level?
AS: We're following the NTIA model [the basis for the ATSC 1.0 converter box program established in the 2000s], where we're establishing specifications, testing rigor around elements that don't exist today for other devices—specifically around sensitivity and recepetibility—and then the program would allow for a certification logo that makes us a very distinct category of a box.

Given its distinction, part of the program is to go out and broadly negotiate lower building material costs, whether that's in IP or in components, and we've been successful on that route. In essence, we're helping to establish a pre-, lower-cost box, or presubsidized in the sense that the industry is doing it, the players (as the component parts), are doing it, knowing that this device is a bridge device. It's very much needed to enable the consumers who can't afford to buy a television to have access to something readily available in the marketplace.

So by coalescing around a program, we're able to sort of recreate what occurred [with the NTIA program], if you look at that pricing point too, that is based on research that might change over time, and overall rises and seed pricing due to supply chain and other global events. But what we're coming in with is essentially almost lower than the NTIA program did back in the day without a subsidy, the economics being such that we're able to deliver something a consumer would be willing to purchase, which is what our study showed. The other part about our study was what really needs to be on this very affordable box, and how do consumers think about features vs. cost vs. value in over the air.

In terms of government funding, that's not available, so I don't know why we would be asking that.

TVT: What kind of feedback have you gotten from broadcasters?
AS: Well, this is broadcast-led, so they're very supportive of this. At the end of the day, we need a signal from the FCC, because consumers will go purchase this box that we've made very affordable if they know that they need to go purchase it. There is no global transition that's ever really happened until there is a transition end date and concurrently an update to standards, so we need that.

We’re getting ready for that by developing and answering the question of the affordable device for the consumer that does not want to change out their television and otherwise wants. That's why we did the [Magid] study to see what their willingness would be to go purchase this device and at what price point. And what we heard was overwhelmingly over 81% saying yes, they would purchase and the price points were $60 and below.

TVT: So is your goal to have this in place and get it moving as soon as you get the word from the FCC?
AS: We’re developing all the program mechanics. We did all the research, and now we have an understanding of the messaging and how the consumer feels about it. We're working with early development set-top box makers to understand what are the components and what are the feature sets that are doable at these price points, and does that match up with willingness from consumers to buy it? The answer is yes, and that's our specification that was announced.

We have a utilization of the current connected TV umbrella logo. All of these require agreements and mechanisms and processes to be able to onboard a set-top box maker for them to understand what the specifications are, to go through the certification to ultimately get the logo, for that logo to have some teeth to it.

So we make sure that the logo, if it's misused, can be revoked, and at the same time, that logo is what these set-top box makers would take to the IP holders, as well as the component makers that we've negotiated with to get that favorable pricing for this device category.

So we're putting in all of the program mechanics and working with three manufacturers [ADTH, Skyworth, and Zinwell] through that process to harden that and ensure that we've got the right systems in place so that once we have the go light, we're able to effectively turn this on. We have not focused fully yet on the go-to-market strategy, other than to say that we do have a website that we currently know works and consumers go to. That would probably be our initial funnel, alongside promotional marketing that the station groups would undertake, but that whole program is really reliant on timelines.

TVT: Pearl TV has joined others in asking for a sunset year, a date of 2028, for the top markets, followed by remaining markets by 2030. How would you characterize your conversations with the FCC in terms of this plan… what kind of feedback have you gotten from them, and do you believe that this is going to help them reach a final decision?
AS: We're looking for something in that range, specifically for a go date, on an update to the receiver rules that could happen, and within three years, the majority of receivers could be upgraded. I think the idea still stands around moving top markets and then looking to smaller markets but the exact timing is really up to the commission.

Pearl has been focused on helping the industry establish a way to find an affordable device path for consumers. We met with the FCC and there's high interest in it that I think helps in terms of getting a favorable rulemaking from the commission.

TVT: The Consumer Technology Association has been very vocal in their opposition to a tuner mandate. Do you believe their concern is justified? In other words, do you see the possibility of a tuner mandate on the horizon?
AS: We are asking for a receiver upgrade. I don't think you have a transition without it. And I think every past transition has proved that this is not the first time that the commission has taken that path, and again, globally, I don't know how you move forward without that.

We're in a situation where the marketplace took it as far as it could, and this is what's needed in order to really fully realize a full transition. So that's basically my answer to that.

TVT: Do you believe retailers have done a good job promoting NextGen TV? Do you think that they'll be ready to market these new boxes?
AS: Again, when there's a signal for a full transition—just like in the last go round, nobody stepped in to really market until that happened, because you have something to organize around, both retailers, CTA and broadcasters. So you can't take one without the other. Retailers are pay to play and they're organized around the manufacturers telling them what to do.

So you can't really fault their involvement, yet. You can just look at history, the last DTV transition, the minute it got organized—between a transition end date and upgrade to the receiver requirements—you had everybody step in with some terrific marketing.

TVT: Will you put these boxes on the market before the FCC makes a decision on the deadline?
AS: We're working on the development with the three main manufacturers and hoping we can get something out by the end of the year, [but] we are facing some headwinds in regards to the supply chain, and that's no surprise. There's memory shortages out there and price hikes, plastic has gone up 20%.

So it's a timing question for us because without the volume guarantee, it's hard for us to be able to come out with a box, and so it just depends.

We’re agnostic to the chip, to the OS, we really leave that up to the box manufacturer. We just have this price ceiling, and they're working right now to figure that out, and getting pretty creative and looking at lowering memory and using various OS systems that take up less memory. I think you're going to see that in everything going forward for a couple years.

[The initiative] is really similar to NTIA. It's just commercially implemented and commercially executed.

LAS VEGAS—The challenge of attending CES is its size. The convention utilizes all of the enormous Las Vegas Convention Center as well as several other facilities, so often getting from one vendor appointment to another is an exercise in logistics and physical endurance. This was not as much of a problem for me this year as I was focused on what was happening in ATSC 3.0 (aka NextGen TV).

Not that CES wasn’t enormous—it certainly was—but the ATSC booth was located in the new Grand Lobby of the LVCC and that seemed to be where all of the NextGen TV information was. While I didn’t see every vendor at the show, I cannot recall seeing an ATSC 3.0 or NextGen TV reference anywhere on the various floors.

I spent time listening to presentations about the latest and greatest television displays. My consistent question after the presentation was the same: “Does this set include a NextGen TV receiver?” To their credit, I didn’t have anyone say “no,” but I also didn’t hear anyone say “yes”—mostly because I think they didn’t know what I was asking for. The one exception was Sony, which doesn’t even exhibit televisions as a product at CES anymore; they knew the vast majority of their sets are NextGen TV-ready. So after a long day on the floor I went back to the ATSC booth and found out the latest.

The Quest for Cheap Converter Boxes
The biggest news is the work that Pearl TV is doing with its partners iWedia and Skyworth on the creation of a low-cost, plain “vanilla” converter box—think of the coupon-eligible converter boxes of the original DTV conversion two decades ago. Anne Schelle, Managing Director of Pearl TV, says that by creating a model with tailored specifications, it qualifies the units for discount pricing from the IP owners and the chip set manufacturers.

I say “plain vanilla,” but in truth, the final specifications are still being worked out and it is a bit of a balancing act. The idea is to bring the box to market at $60 or less, which presents some interesting challenges. According to Miguel Rivera, Skyworth’s Director of Business Development for North America, the explosion of AI infrastructure has created a supply chain issue on components such as DDR memory chips.

So there are still details to be worked out and according to both Schelle and Rivera they are analyzing what consumers really need and want to get the best trade off of features for price.

Understanding what consumers want is critical for the success of the project. Pearl is working with Magid Associates to analyze consumer data to help ensure that this device ticks the right boxes. Ultimately what will be delivered is a converter box with an antenna input and an HDMI output that will allow any display to present NextGen TV to the viewer.

Target: 50K Boxes for Retails By the End of 2026
One area where this converter box will outperform the original DTV converter boxes is that there are already many successful implementations of ATSC 3.0 tuners in the market so much of the refinement has already been accomplished.

Additionally, Skyworth and their software partner iWedia already have considerable experience since Skyworth is providing the tuners for TV 3.0 in Brazil and Mexico as well as being licensed to provide the receivers for televisions marketed under the Panasonic and Phillips brands. This level of experience should ensure that these new converters function properly.

According to Rivera and Zivko Radonjic, business development manager for iWedia, this CES was technically the first demonstration of a prototype for the project. The target is to have a working demo by the end of the summer when the complete list of specifications is better defined and an initial run of approximately 50,000 units by year end. Schelle expects that promotion of NextGen TV and the units will begin around that same time frame. Of course all of this is dependent on supply chain stability.

I asked Schelle what metric Pearl would use to measure the success of the venture. She offered that success would be “incremental.” Pearl’s belief is that by delivering a working model of an affordable converter, other manufacturers would step up to the plate and deliver similar units under their own branding.

Several times during the conversation, the need to sunset ATSC 1.0 was mentioned so I asked what Pearl would see as the best 1.0 sunset rulemaking. Robert Folliard, Gray Television’s senior vice president of government relations and distribution, offered that broadcasters need a hard date from the FCC as soon as they are comfortable. Neither Schelle nor Folliard believe that maintaining the current status was tenable for much longer.

Given that Pearl was using the DTV CECB (coupon-eligible converter box) model to develop this new device, I asked if they were considering presenting this program to Congress to generate support similar to the coupon program. While the answer wasn’t immediate, it was “yes,” but only as an idea and it wouldn’t be the deciding factor on whether or not to proceed.

A ‘Soft’ Market for NextGen TV
When asked about how satisfied she is with how the consumer electronics manufacturers are approaching NextGen TV, Schelle admitted that the market is certainly soft and that the business model has changed. Folliard also spoke about how set manufacturers have created their own walled gardens and are hoping to get broadcasters to pay to be discoverable within their Home Screen environment.

I postulated that I wouldn’t be surprised if the large manufacturers didn’t adopt the cellular model and give away televisions if the consumer signs up for a multi-year subscription plan. Schelle said he was happy to hear that, since they had been having similar discussions.

While the affordable converter box was the most interesting ATSC 3.0 development I looked at, I have to give an honorable mention to Zapper Mini. One of the challenges that I see to any renaissance of OTA television is the idea that every set in the house has to have an antenna cable drop.

The Mini uses a regular Zapperbox as a gateway and then uses WiFi or Ethernet to connect Mini’s to the gateway. You can put these on every television in the house with the gateway connected to a single antenna. It is an interesting technology that I am looking forward to trying in my home.

Fifteen years ago this month, U.S. broadcasters “cut the cord” on NTSC, shutting down analog TV and putting the finishing touches on a transition to digital that lasted more than a decade. 

Viewer response was fairly muted, but that’s because broadcasters, regulators and consumer electronics companies rightly anticipated an outcry if too many viewers lost access to a free over-the-air signal. Navigating the deadline to shut down analog was a frustrating process as all parties involved attempted to assemble the variety of moving parts that made up the transition.

In the summer of 2024, the industry is looking at the next shutdown—the end of ATSC 1.0. Despite the arduous task that faced broadcasters in the 2000s during the first transition, this next transition could be even harder to achieve.

Comparing the two transitions is apples to oranges. The first transition was mainly based on regulatory guidelines that in essence, forced industries to cooperate toward a common goal. The cable, broadcast and consumer electronics industries were also facing a far less complex media ecosystem where there was less competition for eyeballs. And perhaps the biggest factor was the decrease in prices for large screen 16:9 flat screens that aligned with broadcasters’ move to HDTV, a very noticeable and welcome advance for home viewers.

What Do You Get With NextGen TV?
The transition to ATSC 3.0 (aka NextGen TV) is touted as “market-driven” with a lighter regulatory touch than the move to 1.0. There are no specific deadlines for stations to deploy the standard nor are there any mandates to provide tuners in any receiving devices. There aren’t any mandates for broadcasters to provide anything more than simulcasting ATSC 1.0. 

And, in contrast to the first transition, broadcasters face a much more complex media landscape and Silicon Valley competitors with far deeper pockets and much less to lose if a particular experimental service failed (remember Quibi?). It’s also harder to get viewers who are now used to getting their programs in 4K and HDR to get excited about 4K HDR broadcasts. 

Mark Aitken, senior vice president of advanced technology for Sinclair Broadcast Group would beg to differ on that front. 

“HDR is very significant, and one of the promises of the ATSC 3.0 standard is better television for America’s living rooms,” Aitken said at this year’s NAB Show. “It was the focus of the ATSC at this year’s CES. CBS’s delivery of the February Super Bowl LVIII in HDR should spur others to add this enhancement to their ATSC 3.0 transmissions and I expect to see announcements from other networks,” said Aitken, who added that some 40 Sinclair stations are on the air with Advanced HDR by Technicolor. 

Aitken’s sentiments are echoed by Anne Schelle, managing director of Pearl TV, the consortium of broadcasters and manufacturers promoting NextGen TV, who discussed how local Louisville, Ky. TV stations promoted HDR, 4K and Atmos immersive audio in their local 3.0 broadcasts during the week leading up to the 2024 Kentucky Derby. Local stations partnered with a local retailer to give away NextGen TV sets and promotions on their websites attracted “a significant increase in traffic.”

“I think that is a good indicator of the interest in HDR,” she said. Schelle also noted Pearl’s recent announcement that several large station groups, including Gray Television, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television, Tegna and The E.W. Scripps Co. will accelerate funding of the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority (A3FA), the driving force behind the RUN3TV platform. Pearl TV says it expects additional broadcast groups to become involved in the future.

“RUN3TV is  built by broadcasters for broadcasters and it allows companies who built on the platform to easily build applications and try out unique features and have them be able to work across the multitudes of operating systems that are currently out there and more to come,” she said.

A new partnership with ROXi to launch interactive music channels, as well as NBC’s announcement that affiliates in top markets are launching ancillary services via NextGen TV were among the other 3.0 highlights announced at the NAB Show in April. 

Beyond consumer applications, broadcasters are also using a portion of their spectrum to deploy new datacasting services. Also at the NAB Show, Sinclair launched its “Broadspan” datacast service in partnership with Edgio. The new service will enable data distribution in all the current markets where Sinclair stations are offering ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley invited other station groups to join the service. 

Bandwidth Constraints
While all of these new capabilities are brought to us via the ingenious capability of ATSC 3.0’s combination of broadcast with IP, there’s only so much bandwidth available and that bandwidth is further constrained by the 1.0 simulcasting requirement.

At presstime, ATSC 3.0 has been launched by more than 91 stations in 40 markets, bringing the advanced broadcast standard to within reach of more than 75% of U.S. households. Pearl TV says it expects that number to grow to more than 200 stations in 53 markets by the end of 2024.

Most of those stations are simulcasting 3.0 with 1.0 over “lighthouse” transmission partnerships in which one local station offers up its transmission facilities to “host” the other 3.0 stations in particular markets. This requirement is in place during the transition to ATSC 3.0. Originally, the FCC imposed a 2025 deadline to end 1.0 simulcasting but in 2023, moved the date to July 17, 2027. The decision was in part predicated by the industry’s exhortations to the commission earlier in the year about a “stalled” transition.  

In response, FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the formation of the “Future of TV” task force at the 2023 NAB Show, inviting all industry players to work together towards a successful conclusion of the transition to 3.0. 

“This Future of Television initiative will gather industry, government, and public interest stakeholders to establish a roadmap for a transition to ATSC 3.0 that serves the public interest” Rosenworcel said at the time. “A successful transition will provide for an orderly shift from ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0 and will allow broadcasters to innovate while protecting consumers, especially those most vulnerable.”    

‘Frank’ and ‘Candid’
The FCC asked the NAB to take the lead by hosting the meetings, and while the industry has been tight-lipped about characterizing the tone, the best the press has been able to get out of sources is that they are “frank” and “candid,” which, in Inside the Beltway-speak, can have a wide variety of meanings. 

But given the cable industry’s long-held viewpoint that certain guardrails must be in place before it replaces 1.0 with 3.0 and the consumer electronics industry’s vehement opposition to any Congressional tuner mandates, it’s understandable that the task force may not arrive at a definitive deadline that will please everyone.

The NAB, for its part, is staying on message. “The Future of TV initiative has made great progress, and we are looking forward to releasing the report later this year,” they told TV Tech. “We appreciate the participation of everyone involved in this effort to help ensure a smooth transition.”

ATSC President Madeleine Noland agrees that ending the transition is top of mind for broadcasters, noting that until a deadline is established, broadcasters are finding ways to add more capabilities despite the bandwidth constraints. 

“As exciting as datacasting is, until the transition is farther along—and I don’t mean getting from 75% to 100%—but I mean within a given market, it’s important to have more transmitters available with 3.0. I think about the Boston market and we have one transmitter up, which is carrying five or six high-definition signals and at least two standard-definition search services. There’s not a lot of room to do anything else.”

Noland mentioned the recent addition of five more 3.0 stations in the San Antonio market as one of the ways around such constraints. “I gotta tip my hat to San Antonio for being able to get that second stick up.“ Noland said, adding that the current focus will not be in trying to finish the other 25%, but in expanding coverage in existing markets. “Let’s try to get depth in the markets that we already have because we’ve got all the big markets; let’s build it out and be able to do more with 3.0 in those markets.”

Consumer Devices
According to the CTA,  the cumulative U.S. installed base of NextGen TV receivers topped 10.3 million in 2023 and consumer sales of NextGen TV products are expected to increase by 45% in 2024. ATSC says more than 100 consumer products that support NextGen TV are expected to be available by the end of 2024, with the vast majority being TV sets from Sony, Hisense, TCL and Samsung. LG, which announced a suspension of the manufacturing of NextGen TV sets in 2023 due to a patent dispute, currently sits on the sidelines.   

Unlike the transition from analog to digital when the federal government subsidized the purchase of low-cost digital tuners for consumers who have yet to go digital, NextGen TV’s market-based approach provides no such incentives. 

One person, however, believes that a pure market driven approach is unrealistic and notes that public-private partnerships between industry and the government have an historic precedent that should also play a part in the transition to NextGen TV. 

John Lawson, executive director of AWARN, a consortium of business and government entities promoting advanced emergency alerting technologies on 3.0, thinks  low-cost converter boxes subsidized by the federal government would help accelerate the move to sunset 1.0. 

In an op-ed on TV Newscheck in March, Lawson wrote: 

“Congress would establish a new voucher program for 3.0 set-top boxes and dongles. This time, however, the subsidy program would be established in the name of public safety, for both resilient alerting in the face of climate change and national security to provide a back-up for GPS. Broadcasters would agree to carry Advanced Emergency Information, perhaps with sunset provisions for EAS, and receivers would be enabled to display AEI messages.”

Lawson said he arrived at his position after a meeting with the FCC as well as with broadcasters in Michigan.

“Senior staff at the FCC told me that the broadcast industry had made it clear from the beginning in their opinion that the 3.0 transition was unlike the transition from analog to digital, and that it would be a purely market driven approach,” he said. “And then I went out on the road so to speak to the Michigan Broadcast Engineering Conference I really got a dose of reality,” adding that nobody raised their hand when he asked attendees if the 3.0 transition was “on the right track.”

Lawson adds that his proposal follows a traditional path and promotes, “in effect, a partnership between government and industry.”

“American capitalism is dependent upon R&D and other investments by the federal government and it allows companies like Apple and Meta and many others to make a lot of money. [But] there's a general healthy weariness among the broadcast industry about getting government involved but there are many, many examples of where the two actually support each other.”

Will it Survive as a Purely Market-Driven Transition?
The transition to ATSC 3.0 contains an insane number of moving parts as well as a variety of approaches and while no one is suggesting Congressional mandates of any kind, in its current state, there remains some question as to whether it will survive its status as a completely market-based transition.  

But don’t tell that to Rob Folliard, senior vice president of government relations and distribution with Gray TV and chairman of Pearl TV who says the transition to 3.0 is moving at a faster pace than the move to 1.0. 

“[The transition] has worked better than the government-mandated transition 20 years ago, we are moving ahead faster,” Folliard said. “And I think the reason the market-based approaches work is because the broadcasters see a huge opportunity, a huge ROI, and we’re making it work. We’re finding creative ways to cooperate, channel share, in order to make the transition happen.”

Amid much commentary about the negative impact high-valued sports streaming initiatives could have on local TV stations and MVPDs there’s another much more optimistic view emerging from the ranks of several publicly traded station groups.In sharp contrast to those who feel threatened by sports rights owners’ surging embrace of streaming, these station owners contend they are making significant headway with opportunistic adjustments to the new reality.

Even in the case of “Spulu,”—the unofficial name of the mega sports streaming joint venture between ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery scheduled to launch later this year—there’s a big split between those who are shrugging it off and the entities ringing alarm bells. According to a report in the Wall St. Journal, the service—which promises to offer feeds from ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS and truTV—could cost up to $50 per month.

A skeptic might see recent “what-me-worry?” sports-related stances taken by big station groups like Nexstar, Gray, Tegna, Sinclair and E.W. Scripps as posturing meant to allay Wall Street concerns. After all, there’s plenty of fuel for apprehension in the raw statistics surrounding the surge in sports streaming.

Unlevel Playing Field
In the U.S., 80% of sports fans, including 76% who watch NFL games and 89% of the soccer fan base, sometimes or regularly view the action online, according to Nielsen Fan Insights. As for sports rights revenues flowing to sports producers from streamers, research by Ampere Analysis found the global total jumped 64% to hit $8.5 billion in 2023, representing 21% of all sports rights revenues compared to 13% the year before.

Nonetheless, there’s a widening gap between station groups and Tier 1 multichannel video  programming distributors (MVPDs) who can turn developments to their advantage and other station owners and smaller pay-TV systems who feel they’re trapped on an unlevel playing field. It makes for a cacophony of messages hitting regulators and investors at a moment when everyone is looking for a more coherent, predictable business environment to work and invest in.

“If you could figure out whether there’s one unified voice from either the broadcast side or the cable side, I’d love to read your article,” says Grant Spellmeyer, president of ACA Connects, the lobbying organization representing smaller cable companies. “It is fractured all over the place.”

Brian Lawlor, president of Scripps Sports, offers several reasons for his company’s upbeat perspective on the role sports will continue to play in drawing audiences not only to its stations but, in some respects, to most other local broadcasters as well. “Even though some stuff has moved to streaming, most premier sports remain on linear television,” Lawlor says.

Streaming may bring some additional revenue to rights owners, but discussions with teams and leagues reveal “they’re all concerned about reach and their ability to put games in front of fans,” Lawlor adds. “At the end of the day, local broadcast continues to reach 100% of households.”

Indeed, as Lawlor and other station group executives note, free over-the-air exposure has become even more important to sports producers in light of the reversal in regional sports network (RSN) fortunes, including most prominently those of Diamond Sports Group, which is pursuing a Chapter 11 restructuring deal that would give Amazon Prime streaming rights to its sports partners’ games. “A decade ago, a lot of us had partnerships with RSNs reaching 80 percent of their markets, and now it’s down to just 35 or 40 percent,” Lawlor says.

Scripps, like other station groups, is capitalizing on sports teams’ desires to maintain broad local coverage, in this case with new deals involving the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights and Phoenix Coyotes. Other recent high-profile local station sports partnerships include Tegna’s with the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and Milwaukee Bucks, and Gray Television’s with that league’s Phoenix Suns, Atlanta Hawks, and New Orleans Pelicans.

Market Overreaction?
Along with citing such deals to quell Wall Street anxieties, some station group executives have been addressing what Nexstar President/CEO Mike Biard recently referred to as “a significant misinterpretation in market overreaction” to the proposed JV streaming service.

During the company’s Q4 2023 report to investors in late February, Biard said, “We have confirmation that it will function in the same manner as other vMVPDs that distribute over Fox and ABC affiliated stations,” meaning he expects the new service to join other online providers of MVPD-like lineups in payment of what amounts to retransmission consent fees.

Interestingly, the question of legally mandating retransmission payments from “virtual” MVPDs (i.e., YouTube TV, Hulu Live+, Sling TV), remains outstanding in an unresolved FCC notice of proposed rulemaking first issued in 2014, which the NAB has been pressing the commission to address since late last year. vMVPDs’ willingness to pay voluntarily while joining forces with the big four broadcast networks to oppose FCC action serves as another demonstration of market clout wielded by some station groups.

During their own Q4 conferences, Sinclair President/CEO Christopher Ripley and Scripps President/CEO Adam Symson agreed with Biard that the sports JV doesn’t look so bad, assuming it survives to generate payments to stations affiliated with broadcast networks carrying sports targeted by the JV. But as Ripley sees it, that’s a “big if.”

Citing missing Olympics and incomplete NFL and March Madness coverage, he said, “If this is all about attracting the sports fanatic, it’s hard to say it’s a slam dunk.” Instead, the JV “will be yet another virtual MVPD in an already crowded and somewhat established marketplace…competing with and likely cannibalizing other streaming products from the very same companies that make up the partnership.”

Such sanguinity is a far cry from the responses emanating from other sources. Along with crying foul over what they see as the JV’s antitrust implications, they assert high-profile exclusive pro sports deals like those cut by Amazon, Apple, and Comcast’s Peacock service are the tip of an unchecked spear coming right at them.

Initial Opposition
Opinions vary as to which business model constitutes the larger threat.

Unlike the big exclusive streaming deals, “Spulu’s” plans face court and Justice Department scrutiny. Coming to light in mid-February were the antitrust suit filed in New York by sports streamer FuboTV and an as-yet-unconfirmed investigation Bloomberg reported was getting underway at the DOJ.

ACA Connects’ Spellmeyer echoes widely held sentiments expressed by skeptics. Looking at what little is known about the partners’ plans as a “continuing deterioration of the linear programming model,” Spellmeyer says the JV is especially notable as a harbinger of what could be in store.

“This is a bigger deal than the movement of one baseball playoff game to Peacock or even moving Thursday Night NFL games to Amazon,” Spellmeyer says. The JV is doing this “to further exploit their market power and put it together collectively and leverage it.”

But a source voicing the concerns of a large station group owner says the amounts big streamers are willing to pay for sports rights represent an even bigger anticompetitive threat to broadcasters, MVPDs and even Silicon Valley vMVPDs.

“They are all in the same sinking boat with the great white Amazon shark circling,” the person said. “These big tech streamers are willing to spend stupid amounts of money to take rights away from the broadcast networks and broadcast stations—when it comes to sports—are at the mercy of the networks.”

In addition to the courts, observers are also keeping an eye on Congress, which has cast a skeptical eye on sports streaming, and in particular, garnering swift criticism from politicians when NBC broadcast an NFL playoff game exclusively on Peacock in January.

“I think our job here is to protect the American consumer to ensure that they’re able to easily access the content that they pay for,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), during a Congressional hearing on the subject in February. Referring to professional sports and media (with no pun intended), she said “I just think it’s a racket. It’s a racket.” 

SIDEBAR:

NextGen TV Could Bring Sports Coverage ‘On Par’ With Streamers
Beyond the debate over the immediate impact of sports streaming there’s another story to be told that’s opening a new chapter on broadcast stations’ plays in sports programming. With ATSC 3.0 (aka NextGen TV), leaping to 75% market coverage over the past year on a trajectory to near blanket coverage by year’s end, NextGen TV will give stations an opportunity to greatly enhance sports viewing experiences as well as to bring more local sports coverage to their audiences.

As explained by Anne Schelle, managing director of the Pearl TV consortium of eight large station groups operating 820 TV stations nationwide, Pearl TV affiliated stations and others rolling out NextGen TV services are putting a lot of stock in the appeal of what they can do with sports programming. Indeed, she notes, sports broadcasting is a big focus of the ATSC 3.0 exhibit at this month’s NAB Show.

One big aspect to what can be done with NextGen TV has to do with enabling 4K UHD with HDR when games are broadcast in 4K along with HDR enhancements to HD when technology supporting upscaling to HDR from SDR is in play. With 20 million households in reach of HDR-enabled signals at the start of the year, the goal is to hit 50 million this spring, 80 million by the Summer Olympics, “and then it becomes pretty ubiquitous by year’s end,” Schelle says.

Another sports-related advancement involves setting up a “virtual TV station” to stream the contents of a sports-rich station not equipped for ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. Schelle notes this allows these stations to deliver sports programming to connected TVs and personal devices with the full benefits of NextGen TV sports viewing experiences.

ATSC 3.0 support for HTML5 overlays that can be synched for display on OTA channels delivered to connected TVs adds still another dimension to sports viewing experience. Schelle says Pearl TV has partnered with Run3TV to use its platform as an abstraction layer that allows Pearl members’ HTML5 NextGen TV apps to run on all the operating systems used by their OEM partners.

“NextGen TV brings broadcasters on par with innovations we see on streaming services,” Schelle adds. She notes the ATSC 3.0 display at this month’s NAB Show includes demonstrations of joint efforts of Run3TV and Play Anywhere, a rights clearinghouse that facilitates interactive apps for advertising, betting, e-commerce and much else by ensuring all rights holders tied to a given app get the share due them from revenues generated by the app.

Critically, the HTML5 feed can also be used to bring complete coverage of sports events to CTV screens. “It allows broadcasters to do pop-up channels covering lots of things they couldn’t do on air in the past,” Schelle says. Pop-up tie-ins with stations’ EPGs can expose options to viewing local college and high school sports, enabling an unprecedented level of localized TV engagement. “There’s so much power in local sports coverage,” she notes.

Mentioning efforts along these lines by Pearl TV members’ Gray Television and Scripps, Schelle adds, “They’re recognizing it. Their ratings are super high with local audiences that have an affinity for these teams. This is helping them to pull in ‘Z-generation’ viewers.”

The arrival of ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV—and its ability to combine broadcast with IP—has the potential to transform TV commercials from one-way mass-market blasts to two-way personalized interactive experiences. 

“ATSC 3.0 provides OTA broadcasters the same level of interactivity that you’re seeing with digital content on the web today,” said Anne Schelle, managing director of the Pearl TV broadcaster consortium. “Everything that advertisers can do with digital online, they can now do over the air using ATSC 3.0.”

Dynamic Ad Insertion
The biggest advantage of ATSC 3.0-based TV advertising is its ability to provide sponsors with all of the features offered by online interactive advertising. This advance finally releases broadcast television from the bonds of 20th century one-way TV advertising, which is about as up-to-date as VCRs. 

“Online, there's the ability to enable dynamic ad insertion plus things like overlays and interactive application ads where viewers are actually engaging with advertisements,” said Schelle. “When TV stations broadcast in ATSC 3.0 to ATSC 3.0-enabled TV sets connected to the web, all of this interactivity becomes available over the air for live linear broadcasts.”

Ad Insertion Platform Sàrl is a Swiss technology company with 15 years experience in the ad insertion business, and one that is harnessing the advertising possibilities offered by ATSC 3.0 through its ‘Ad Break Composer’ platform.

“This new standard promises more dynamic and interactive experiences for viewers, from higher resolution content and audio quality to personalized ad delivery tailored specifically for each individual viewer,” said Laurent Potesta, CEO and Founder of Ad Insertion Platform Sàrl. “Design-wise, it will enable dynamic ad insertion capabilities as well as the ability to customize ads based on user data such as location or demographics."

An advantage for both broadcaster and viewer is the ability for ATSC 3.0 to reach viewers who are most likely to be receptive to it. With ATSC 3.0, “each viewer gets a targeted ad break for their specific targeting profile,” explained Ahmed Swidan, director of Personalized TV for Ateme. Ateme offers an ATSC 3.0 advertising solution that handles stream signaling from the transcoding side up to fetching, transcoding and stitching ads in ATSC 3.0 live streams. “This increases the monetization potential for the station owners as they are able to split their inventory effectively,” Swidan added.

Meanwhile, ATSC 3.0 retains the mass market reach of 20th century television that the web with its one-to-one service model cannot match. The result: “NextGen TV provides advertisers the same kind of reach they are accustomed to with local broadcasting, while layering-in addressability,” said Kerry G. Oslund, vice president of Strategy and Business Development, for station group The E.W. Scripps Company.

Scripps is already adding ‘Start Over’ and ‘Pause Ads’ functions to some of its programs in support of ATSC 3.0. For example, “a viewer who gets home at 6:10 pm and wants to watch the entire 6 p.m. local news will be able to ‘start over’ after watching a very short sponsorship message,” said Oslund. Display ads will also occur whenever a viewer pauses their video feed under Scripps’ ‘Pause Ads’ feature. As well, “in one market, we have connected programmatic adverts into the VOD content we provide via a broadcast application.”

All told, “ATSC 3.0 will allow station owners to harness the revenue potential of turning their inventory from a linear advertising model to full addressability,” observed Swidan.”This will allow them to fit more campaigns in their inventory, which will in turn increase their revenue.”

In addition to providing TV advertisers with interactivity, addressability, and personalization of their OTA-delivered ads, ATSC 3.0 gives them a superior delivery medium that supports 4K video at up to 120 fps, along with High Dynamic Range (HDR) pictures and superior sound.

“Obviously the actual video content—including the story that it tells—is the key to an effective ad,” said Guy Hadland, CTO of UniSoft Corp. [UniSoft’s A344 interactive content environment can replace content at the receiver level, while allowing broadcasters to gather data on viewer habits and measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.] 

It’s the Data
But interactive ads offer many other pluses to broadcasters, Hadland added, including allowing viewers to request further product information via their smartphones, find local dealers/stores related to advertised products in their areas, and even take part in political polls during elections.

The personalized addressability of ATSC 3.0 can also provide accurate real-time information about viewers’ preferences based on their actual content choices and duration of viewing times. Compared to previous ways of measuring local audiences that relied on representative sampling, “NextGen TV will bring stability to the local measurement marketplace,” said Schelle. ”Given that there’s huge value in local TV viewership, I think this will increase the value of local advertising overall.”

Potesta says 3.0 will make broadcasters far more competitive when it comes to providing the data ad companies are used to.

With ATSC 3.0 “advertisers now have access to a wealth of data about viewers’ preferences which they can use to create highly targeted campaigns, as well as dynamic ad insertion technology that enables them to deliver different ads in real-time depending on individual viewer behavior or content being viewed at any given moment,” he explained. 

“With this increased level of customization available through ATSC 3.0, advertisers are able to create far more effective campaigns than ever before—ultimately resulting in better ROI for their business investments in television advertising overall.”

Anne Schelle, Managing Director of Pearl TV, the consortium of broadcasters, manufacturers focused on ATSC 3.0 (aka "NextGen TV") has been a familiar face to broadcasters deploying the advanced terrestrial TV standard and has worked diligently to promote the standard to the industry as well as to the general public. 

TV Tech recently caught up with Anne to talk about ATSC 3.0 at the 2023 NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 16-19.

TV Tech: Heading into the NAB Show, how would you assess where the transition to ATSC 3.0 is at this point?

Anne Schelle: I think we had a good quarter bringing up three big markets: Miami, Boston and San Francisco, so we're excited about that. We're on track to get to our goal of having 75% of U.S. households within reach of a 3.0 signal by the end of this year. 

The other thing I've noticed is that it's been five years since the rules came out and four years since we established the Phoenix Model Market, but then we went through Covid—and sometimes we forget about that. And despite that, we've seen a lot of progress. 

I was at a Hisense press gathering recently in New York where they unveiled their televisions and they talked about the importance of NextGen TV and they see it as an important way to future-proof their televisions for consumers to bring the best over-the-air service. And that’s particularly important for sports fans, it’s a driver for  view over the air. 

So you've got Hisense, Sony, Samsung and LG all bringing out their spring lineups now, these were  announced at CES, we're working closely with them to get consumer information out there. Our holiday campaign was really successful, we ran over 30,000 spots in 17 markets, reaching potentially 30 million households, giving consumers that  f broader understanding of what NextGen TV is all about. We also ran Dolby spots with our “The future of TV is here” spots and we ran a  digital camoaign encouraging customers to look for the NextGen TV logo. 

One of the features that we’re getting feedback from consumers is upgradability. As we add new features and get the signals available to our goal of 75% of homes by the end of this year, we' plan to to enable some of the more enhanced features to consumers as we reach scale.

At NAB we’re going to talk about HDR, for example, which is coming in the not too distant future. In addition, we’ll talk about how broadcasters are dealing with spectrum constraints as they deploy NextGen TV. For example, in Miami, because of the IP nature of the platform we can enable a capability  called a broadcast IP channel, which we did with South Florida PBS—and the TV manufacturers are now virtually all supporting it. 

We had to make a modification in the standard for it but the beauty of what we do on NextGen TV is that the TV manufacturers can upgrade the sets either through the internet or over the air and so that's enabling quick fixes and new services.. 

You're also going to see Scripps talking about their Free TV Project campaign that we have included now on our website (https://www.watchnextgentv.com/) to educate consumers. We'll also be showcasing a very cool cable integration showcasing the digital audio benefits of NextGen TV live. 

TVT: Can you elaborate a little bit on this broadcast IP channel? 

AS: It’s basically a allows the ability to embed a url in the broadcast that is geofenced by virtue of the fact you could only see and get it over the air. It's free, and what it does is if the TV is connected, the URL goes out and fetches the content that shows up in the EPG if it was delivered over the air. For PBS in Miami, we were limited by spectrum constraints—we’ll eventually be able to launch a second stick in Miami and at that time, they'll be able to move up as an over the air signal. 

But in the meantime this gives the station  the ability to begin to experiment with interactive features, so they're not left behind. And you'll see this enabled in other markets during this spectrum constrained time period. 

In a lot of instances like up in Boston, we were able to add PBS from the start, but not every channel can get on,there's just not enough space. But this is a way for us to have a temporary fix as we're moving forward in the transition. 

When we announced the Miami deployment in January, we said that the PBS deployment was a “test.” The ability to enable a Broadband IP channel was always there in the standard but we had to modify the language so that it would easily be enabled on a television set. LG was our first partner to enable it and Sony is now enabling it, and some of the other manufacturers are working on it. 

When we developed  the ATSC 3.0 standard, it was a completely new and once we put it into practice in the marketplace, we started to see these features and capabilities and ways to do things we didn't really think about but because this platform is so flexible it allows us to react to marketplace needs. 

TVT: Next year, 2024 is being seen as an “inflection point” for NextGen TV. Can you elaborate?

AS: We predict 2024 is going to be a “television refresh year.” Consumers refresh their TVs every six years, so you have the analysts predicting big sales in 2024 and 2025, which is going to be great for us because we have new manufacturers coming in in that timeframe. 

TVT: In regards to your comment about the logo, a colleague of mine was recently in Costco checking out the new TVs and he said none of the TVs from LG, Hisense, Sony or Samsung were sporting the NextGen TV label. Part of that might be from the fact that only certain sets support NextGen TV but all of Sony’s TVs now do. Can you elaborate?

AS: We're  working closely with the TV manufacturers to rectify the lack of where the logo is being seen. The logos are on the boxes. But the issue with the displays is that retailers are only allowed to do only so many things and sometimes they're not allowed to include logos on displays—for whatever reason. 

But we are hearing from retailers that buyers are starting to ask and we're working with them. I hope to be up at Best Buy and Target later in a month with one of the TV manufacturers just to educate them. I think some of the manufacturers do a better job than others, but you're going to really see an uptake towards the end of this year on fixing that.

TVT: Having NextGen TV available in the Detroit market is very important for ATSC in regards to your work with the auto companies. Do you see something similar in Silicon Valley with the San Francisco launch?

AS: Yes, totally and that's exactly why we're promoting it. We work with Silicon Valley—pretty much every TV manufacturers development group is there. If you're doing anything in datacasting, it's all there. And so we're working with some of the local TV stations on some cool stories. 

And guess who else you have there? Dolby, one of my favorite companies. Consumers are leaning in on audio more than ever, and the capabilities of the voice boost and consistent loudness have been there since day one. You see Dolby really talking about immersive, but you're also seeing very cool demonstrations for the first time. At the NAB Show, we'll be showcasing the delivery of audio descriptor which is very robust.

TVT: One aspect of the rollout that’s been getting more attention recently is the role of external accessories (boxes, dongles, etc.) in consumer adoption. Can you update us on progress in this area?

AS: We call them “upgrade accessories,” and we actually published a requirements document for upgrade accessories, and all of those companies that are on the Pearl TV “Fast Track” program, so we've been working with them since the beginning of the Phoenix Model Market. 

We are very much supportive of the companies that are going through the certification process. It’s really important that they are building to the standard under that certification process. We applaud Tolka for being the first company to get into the certification testing regimen. We're starting to see more of them as the price point has declined.

But also more importantly is the system on a chip—manufacturers and vendors that are starting to build to standard, making it easier for the smaller accessory device makers. There's a lot more of them than the ones that have gone public so far, so yes, we're at the beginning of the age of upgrade accessories and we're excited about them. 

WASHINGTON—TV Tech is sponsoring a two-day summit on NextGen TV during its week-long Tech Leadership Summit, March 23-26. This inaugural summit will focus on the business of NextGen TV, the TV industry’s next-generation standard with leading NextGen TV executives offering their thoughts on the progress and future of the ATSC 3.0 standard.

Pearl TV, a consortium of broadcasters and tech companies, has been testing and analyzing technical and marketing opportunities for ATSC 3.0 for several years now and will be speaking at the NextGen TV Summit. 

TV Tech recently talked with Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle to discuss what the group will talk about at next week’s virtual event. Anne will be a panelist on “Keynote Conversation: The Architects,” Thursday, March 25 at 2:15 pm EDT.  

TV Tech: First off, Anne, thank you for participating in our summit next week. Can you elaborate on what’s new at Pearl TV? 

Anne Schelle: Thank you for inviting us. We’ll be talking about the concept of NextGen TV not as better TV but as a new  “enhanced TV experience,” as well as how we’re extending these enhancements beyond TV, into other devices such as automobiles. In Phoenix, we’re now seeing the benefits of having built a model market that was very consumer focused, looking at the features and functions available to broadcasters in NextGen TV and doing all the work to test those out with consumers to find out where their interests are. 

[Our research] culminated in our setting up something we call the “basic service profile” or “television profile” that is in our host manual for broadcast stations to build out on. We’ll also talk about the work we've done with the TV manufacturers to drive the features that would support our partnerships with NAB and CTA logo conformance program, including the use of logos and brand messaging that would help consumers know how to find it and what the logo means.

All of that was done over three years so a lot of work involves truly understanding the consumer first and foremost and honing in on a set of watch capabilities or features that would really drive the scale and adoption, while at the same time allowing us to have a roadmap to continue to build on those services and features; not too dissimilar than any other current digital technologies

Last October, we produced a direct to consumer brand campaign to launch the logo to test message, including a website to let consumers know when they can receive services. We advertised across five markets to test out our messaging, and we just got the results back, and I'm pleased to say that we hit the mark on what consumers are interested in. We haven't released those results yet, but if you go and look at the ads on watchnextgentv.com, you'll see what they are. 

We'll also be talking about the fact that COVID-19 has allowed consumers to become much more familiar with their connected televisions than they have ever been. They're discovering how to do different things including interactive. The concept of being able to interact or get additional content and information on television rose significantly in just the last year to be one of the top features where five or six years ago it was not. 

TVT: 2020 was a big year for ATSC 3.0 with stations’ deploying NextGen TV and the introduction of ATSC 3.0-supported TV sets hitting the market. How has it been going so far? 

AS: I'm really thrilled about where we came out of the gate, even with COVID-19, not just with station buildouts but also TV set sales. The numbers are just now coming in and they’re a lot higher than CTA predictions for the first year.

TVT: What’s high on consumers’ wish list for NextGen TV?

AS: Consumers like the fact that it's upgradable, meaning that its features and services will continue to come to the TV from software and firmware upgrades. That's one of the top-selling features, which we've always talked about: that we can continue to add to the services and functionality on the television set either in our service or on the television set itself with our partners.

TVT: What kind of feedback have you gotten from the stations that are involved in the Phoenix model market in regards to deploying ATSC 3.0?

AS: It's easy for them to implement the basic watch video, so what we're doing now is loading in the enhanced functionality for the application and other more complex capabilities. Pearl and the Phoenix Partners (Networks) are providing a “service desk” on behalf of launched stations; we have a wiki that is helping us educate engineers and “get the kinks out of the system,” like any brand new launch in terms of “how do you set all the dials,” or “how to you make sure that there's full interoperability across all the televisions.” 

We have a great manual that’s now in its 10th edition. The Pearl Host Station Manual is free to download and we consider it “the Bible” on how to build out your station. It’s all based on real world implementation and learnings. 

TVT: Finally, can you tell us what’s going on in regards to NextGen TV applications for mobile vehicles?

AS: I'm really excited about our two test tracks [in Phoenix and Detroit] and some of the work that Sony's done in terms of looking at the reception capabilities for both infotainment and data. We have the ability to deliver both in a really efficient manner. 

There's a lot you can do with decreasing cost of maintenance and upgrades to cars by delivery of files to the cars, including urgent computer upgrades and B2B plays as well. 

And then the infotainment is really interesting. There's precedent for that in Europe with the detailed systems of delivery of infotainment service to the car. We’re also testing so we have sort of a dual ability to provide both in one service, which I think, which is unique for broadcasters to deliver at  much more economic scale. 

Click here to register for the free summit. 

WASHINGTON—The benchmark for ATSC 3.0 deployment in 2020 of 40 markets that was set at the 2019 edition of the NAB Show in Las Vegas may be out of reach because of the impact the coronavirus has had on the broadcast industry, according to Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle.

Schelle offered her assessment during the "NAB Show Express 2020: IABM Online State of the Industry Conference" as part of a panel focusing on U.S. broadcasters.

Schelle notes that NextGen TV development was in a great position following the close of CES 2020, when TV manufacturers said that they would have 20 TV models that were NextGen TV compatible by the end of the year. Schelle also expected that had this year’s NAB Show gone on as planned in April, a number of markets would have had stations that were on-air with the next-gen standard. One such market would have been Las Vegas, which recently announced it is expected to launch ATSC 3.0 by the end of May.

Overall, Schelle estimates that ATSC 3.0 deployment is about a quarter behind of where it could have been had COVID-19 not significantly disrupted the industry. As of publication, six markets have ATSC 3.0 on air. 

She is still optimistic about the eventual deployment of the NextGen TV. She highlighted that manufacturers have remoted into Pearl TV’s Phoenix ATSC 3.0 model to test equipment, as a good portion of infrastructure is software-enabled and able to prep remotely.

This is just one example that the panel focused on regarding how the industry has changed over the last few months.

Additional panelists included Del Parks, CTO of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Renard T. Jenkins, vice president of content transmission at WarnerMedia, who joined Schelle to talk about the pandemic’s impact on their groups. Mike Strein, director of engineering and technology at ABC TV Network, and Ryan McCormick, executive director of engineering and operations for ABC News, spoke on the new TV facility that Disney is creating. Tim Shoulders of Grass Valley and Louis Hernandez Jr. of Black Dragon Capital spoke on GV’s strategy and the status of their acquisition. Also, a group of vendors (Ben Vanderberg, CEO, Skyline Communications; Darren Lepke, head of video production management, Verizon; Joe Fiveash, vice president of strategy, The Weather Company; and Dan Castles, CEO, Telestream) talked about how their companies have reacted to recent changes and challenges.

As IABM CEO Peter White said at the top of the virtual conference, “We know this will change the way we work irreversibly moving forward.” This session helped to highlight some of the ways that it already has.

For more information on IABM virtual events, visit their website. 

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A new survey from Pearl TV shows that consumers are most interested in the enhanced picture and audio quality that Next Gen TV (aka ATSC 3.0) will bring to broadcast television.

Pearl TV is a consortium of station groups and manufacturers testing ATSC 3.0 in Phoenix. The Phoenix Model Market is not only testing the technology but also working with industry research firm Magid to analyze consumer interest in the standard, which combines traditional over the air broadcasting with IP. The two have released numerous surveys over the past several years, all pointing to enthusiastic support when consumers learn about the capabilities of ATSC 3.0.

[Read: Magid Survey: Viewers 'Like' ATSC 3.0 Features]

This most recent research was the result of consumer lab testing Magid recently conducted in conjunction with the Phoenix Model Market project partners and the Pearl TV broadcast business group. In lab testing, viewers said that the ATSC 3.0 capabilities could make them start watching broadcast programming (even if they don’t currently do so). Some broadcast viewers also said an ATSC 3.0-enabled device could make them want to watch broadcast TV even more than they currently watch.

“Consumers find most value in the combination of features. The combination of Enhanced Video – 4K video with High Dynamic Range – and Immersive 3D Audio have the broadest appeal,” noted Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle.

“The consumer sentiment that we heard and felt most during the lab testing was excitement about ATSC 3.0 capabilities and a high overall level of interest in engaging with those capabilities and services through their local broadcasters,” said Bill Hague, Executive Vice President, Magid.

Overall, 91 percent of consumers say they are either “interested” or “very interested” in using a service like Next-Gen ATSC 3.0, with enhanced audio features, including immersive 3D and dialogue customization features having the broadest appeal.

80 percent of consumers say they are either “interested” or “very interested” in purchasing an ATSC 3.0 television or add-on device.

Pearl conducted 12 consumer labs and 6 focus groups in late October 2018. Each lab consisted of 7-9 men and women 18-54 who spend at least five hours a week watching television. A total of 95 participated in the labs and 38 in the focus groups. 

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, visit our ATSC3 silo.

WASHINGTON— Advanced Television Systems Committee members have elected four industry executives to three-year terms as ATSC Board of Directors, the committee announced today.

Pearl TV Managing Director Anne Schelle was reelected to the ATSC board. Jim DeChant, VP of Technology, News-Press Gazette Broadcasting; Ira Goldstone, Executive Engineer, Fox Television; and Dave Siegler, VP, technical operations, Cox Media Group are newly elected to the board. Their terms begin in January 2019.

Departing the board with the expiration of their terms at the end of 2018 are Brett Jenkins, EVP, CTO at Nexstar Media Group; Richard Friedel, EVP and GM, Engineering and Operations, Fox Networks; Glenn Reitmeier, SVP Technology, Standards & Policy at NBC; and Wayne Luplow, who represented the IEEE on the board. Friedel’s term as chairman also expires at the end of the year.

Current board members who will remain on the board in 2019 include: Lynn Claudy, NAB; Mark Corl, Triveni Digital; Jon Fairhurst, Samsung; Dr. Paul Hearty, Sony Electronics; Dr. Jong Kim, LG Electronics; Brian Markwalter, CTA; Thomas Bause Mason, SMPTE; Andy Scott, NCTA — The Internet and Television Association; and Craig Todd, Dolby. Dr. Yian Wu, Communications Research Centre, has been appointed to the 2019 board by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

More information is available on the ATSC website.

For comprehensive coverage on ATSC 3.0, visit TV Technology's ATSC3 silo.

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PHOENIX—Cars will soon regularly receive ATSC 3.0 signals from Phoenix broadcasters taking part in the latest facet of an ongoing trial of Next-Gen TV.

Pearl TV, which is leading the Phoenix Model Market project of 12 stations, and Avis Budget Group announced Oct. 15 they will begin testing various use cases for TV-delivered signals to passenger cars early next year.

“We are excited about it. There are great use cases for automotive, and they are an interesting company,” says Anne Schelle, Pearl TV managing director. “They are one of the largest fleet owners of cars and certainly positioning themselves for the future of connected cars and the shared car environment.”

Possible use cases extend beyond basic reception of OTA video and audio to a variety of interactive capabilities. “We have a general idea of the use cases,” says Schelle. “Now we are just working through the details.”

Avis Budget Group is “on a mission” to reinvent the consumer experience by leveraging mobile apps, digital platforms and connected cars, says Arthur Orduna, executive vice president and chief innovation officer for the rental car company. Information collected during the trial will help Avis Budget Group determine the best new in-car configurations to offer customers in the future, he adds.

One goal of the Phoenix Model Market project is to collect data on how consumers interact with ATSC 3.0 and as well as their preferences with the goal of assisting the TV industry in making a successful launch of standard around the country.

As part of those efforts, Pearl TV will release a consumer survey by month’s end to gauge consumer perceptions about Next-Gen TV content and quality. “We will also be asking consumers about automotive, so we will be able to reflect that in the trial as well,” says Schelle.

For the passenger car trial, OTA-delivered video and audio entertainment will be delivered to vehicles using the ATSC 3.0 interactive runtime environment with support for digital rights management and AC-4 multichannel audio decoding.

While planning is still ongoing, the types of reception devices under consideration include plug-in 3.0 receivers for installed entertainment systems, such as headrest screens, and mobile TV reception on tablets, according to Pearl TV.

For the interactive portion of the trial, various features are being considered, such as electronic guides, program-specific text overlays, rental car information, coupons and maps.

For later projects, software updates, map downloads and real-time traffic information could be delivered to cars from stations transmitting 3.0, according to Pearl TV.

Chetan Sharma, a consultant focused on mobile industry technology and strategy, says ATSC 3.0 along with satellite, Wi-Fi and cellular can provide a hybrid of communications services for vehicular data delivery. A telematics device can then decide at any given moment what’s the best mode of delivery for the vehicle.

“If you are at your house with a Wi-Fi hotspot, you download software,” says Sharma, who has authored a white paper on the topic, entitled “ATSC 3.0 Automotive Opportunity.”

“If you are on the road and there is a software update that’s needed or a mapping content update, then maybe ATSC 3.0 works better.”

Synchronization using a cellular network is essential for the backchannel link, which could verify that an upload via 3.0, Wi-Fi or satellite was successful, he says.

“With the hybrid model, you have more accessibility as an automobile OEM that you otherwise wouldn’t have,” he says, adding that multiple delivery paths add redundancy, which may prove to be particularly important for data bound for cars.

Both Sharma and Schelle agree that 3.0 OTA transmission makes delivery of data to vehicles far more economical than unicast transmission of data via a cell phone network. “With broadcast everybody gets the same content and the economics of its delivery work much better,” says Sharma.

Besides the one-to-many nature of broadcasting, 3.0 is particularly suited to this type of application because of its “levels of compression and the ability to deliver indoors,” says Schelle.

The economic equation also favors broadcasting from a deployment point of view, she says. “What it costs for us to deploy is minimal compared to what it costs the carriers to provide certain kinds of use cases,” says Schelle.

In Phoenix, Next-Gen TV transmission to vehicles will originate from the local Univision station, although a second 3.0 will likely be place by time the test begins and may also be used, says Schelle.

To date, the 3.0 transmission from the Univision station has proven it can reliably deliver data to moving cars, such as the one in which FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly rode this spring while visiting Phoenix for a firsthand look at the 3.0 deployment, she says.

Repeaters and boosters are under consideration for use during the trial with Budget Avis Group, but no definite plans for deployment have been made, Schelle adds.

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo.

PHOENIX—The FCC has granted requests from five commercial and public TV broadcasters for permission to test next-gen TV broadcasts from the transmission facilities of Univision's KFPH-CD, which began ATSC 3.0 broadcasts last March.

"We are delighted to learn this week that the FCC is granting authority for ABC affiliate KNXV, NBC affiliate KPNX, CBS affiliate KPHO, Independent KTVK, and PBS station KAET to utilize the transmission facilities of ATSC 3.0 station KFPH-CD in collaborative testing,” said said Anne Schelle, managing director of Pearl TV, which is coordinating the Phoenix test market. “This is a very positive step forward and we are grateful for the authority to move the Phoenix Model Market project forward."

The stations that were approved by the FCC week are part of the Phoenix Model Market project that was announced last November. The goals of the Phoenix Model Market project—which now total 12 stations—are to test ATSC 3.0 television service and new business models, to develop a framework to facilitate nationwide deployment of ATSC 3.0 service (including best practices), to test consumer devices, and to collect real-time consumer input through surveys and focus groups.

[Read: Phoenix Model Market Launches Next Gen TV Broadcasts]

Last November, the FCC adopted rules authorizing the transmission of the Next Gen TV standard, with a streamlined licensing process for the new technology effective this past July. But while the Commission's Media Bureau is making changes to its licensing system, stations will must seek experimental authority. Such authority was granted to five more stations that are participating in the Phoenix Model Market project.

In March, the FCC authorized Univision's KFPH-CD to transmit ATSC 3.0 transmissions as part of the model market "test bed" in Phoenix. At that time, the FCC said that any other stations wanting to utilize the Univision station for transmission of ATSC 3.0 signals must seek permission to do so.

The FCC approval letter notes that "in their applications, the Licensees have committed to continuing to air an ATSC 1.0 signal over their existing channels using their licensed facilities" and that "because of spectrum capacity constraints and in order to accommodate all of the stations that plan to participate in the Phoenix Market Trial, the Stations have requested flexibility to rotate their individual ATSC 3.0 guest signals on and off the ATSC 3.0 host station, KFPH-CD."

Participating TV groups and stations in the Phoenix Model Market include: 

• Arizona State University's Arizona PBS (KAET)

• Arizona Television’s KAZT Channel 7 (Independent)

• E.W. Scripps’ KNXV (ABC)

• Fox Television Stations' KSAZ (Fox) and KUTP (MyTV)

• Meredith’s KPHO (CBS) and KTVK (Independent)

• Nexstar Media Group’s KASW (CW)

• Telemundo Station Group’s KTAZ (Telemundo)

• TEGNA’s KPNX (NBC), and

• Univision’s KFPH-CD (UniMas) and KTVW (Univision)

For a comprehensive list of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo.