Point: 5G Broadcast Connects Stations to the Mobile Future

The press is filled with stories predicting the demise of linear broadcast television. And certainly, it is true that we face many obstacles, including streaming services taking our viewers and advertisers, cable cord-cutting eroding our retransmission revenues and our own networks climbing on the streaming bandwagon.

But what if there was a new broadcast standard that held the promise of connecting broadcasters not only to television receivers, but also to 5G wireless smartphones and tablets, opening a whole new market to our transmission? The good news is that there is such a standard and it is called 5G Broadcast. And because 5G Broadcast (unlike ATSC 3.0) was adopted as part of the 3G PP 5G standard, it holds the key to our future. All we have to do is join large portions of the world in adopting it.

I have the greatest respect for my longtime friend Mark Aitken, who has advocated with great skill to try to make ATSC 3.0 the American standard for next-gen TV. And I have great admiration for Sinclair and its principal, David Smith. David is probably the only station group owner who has seated himself at a bench and actually built a UHF transmitter.

Let me state upfront that no one is paying me to write this article and that I do not own a single share of stock in Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, mobile chip makers or phone manufacturing companies. My investments are in boring municipal bonds with no relation whatsoever to the television or telecom industries.

Worldwide Standard
The broadcasting industry is transitioning from ATSC 1.0 to a next-generation standard. The two principal choices available to us are ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast. An international standards body called 3GPP sets the standards for all cellular devices in the world and all of the major cellular device manufacturers (Apple, Samsung, etc.) build their devices to comply with 3GPP. 3GPP-compliant devices only receive signals that are part of the 3GPP family of 5G global standards, meaning that broadcasters who transition to the 5G Broadcast standard will be able to transmit directly to the hundreds of millions of next generation 5G smartphones and tablets.

By contrast, ATSC 3.0 is not a part of the 3GPP family of cellular standards and therefore cannot and will not be able to be received by smartphones and tablets compliant with the 3GPP standards. For this reason, Sinclair and others tried diligently to get ATSC 3.0 approved by 3GPP as part of its standards. Ultimately, 3GPP refused to incorporate ATSC 3.0 into its standard.

LTE-based 5G Broadcast is better-suited for integration with 3GPP modems because it reuses nearly all existing LTE/5G components and hardware, whereas ATSC 3.0 requires different implementations across critical building blocks.

So far, public and private broadcast operators in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Estonia, Spain and the Czech Republic came forward and announced their intentions to deploy the 5G Broadcast standard. And there is continuing interest in 5G Broadcast in Malaysia, China and Brazil, with active trials and evaluation of the technology. With several large countries committing to 5G Broadcast, I expect TV-set manufacturers to incorporate 5G Broadcast receivers to meet marketplace demand—no government mandates necessary.

Because of trial broadcasts around the world—including a Federal Communications Commission-approved trial by low-power station WWOO in the Boston market—we don’t need to speculate about whether 5G Broadcast can be received by 5G smartphones.

Simply Stated, It Works!
So American full-power TV broadcasters face the following choice: Do you want to transition to a next-gen standard that broadens your market to include reception by 5G cellular devices, or do you want to transition to a standard that cannot be received by those devices?

The question answers itself.

Advocates for ATSC 3.0 try mightily to think of applications that could make up for their standard’s lack of access to 3GPP cellular devices. They argue that car manufacturers will go to the expense of adding ATSC 3.0 receivers to their cars to receive software downloads. But since all cars (even my low-tech minivan) already have 5G transceivers that serve that function, that seems very unlikely. Or they argue that an ATSC 3.0-based new GPS system will be the key to our future. That seems a real stretch, and certainly no substitute for gaining access to 3GPP cellular devices.

So why is Sinclair pushing so hard for ATSC 3.0? The simple answer is that they have a conflict—not bad or evil—just a conflict. Sinclair owns a vast portion of the intellectual property that makes up the ATSC 3.0 standard. That means that they stand to reap a fortune in royalties if American full-power broadcasters adopt ATSC 3.0. All other TV broadcasters can make their choice without being burdened by that conflict!

In my opinion the only thing that can save broadcasting from extinction is to transition to 5G Broadcast and transmit directly to both TV receivers and 3GPP cellular devices and thereby join the mobile future.

All we have to do is do it!

Reflections vs. Illumination: Choosing the Right Path for Broadcast

Bold claims are easy to make, especially from seasoned showmen. But if you’re going to listen to them, it’s best to keep one hand on your wallet. Advocates of 5G Broadcast like to make impressive claims about what 5G Broadcast is and what it can do. So, to avoid confusion, before discussing the relative merits of NextGen TV (or ATSC 3.0) and 5G Broadcast, it’s important to clarify one thing that 5G Broadcast is not.

First and foremost, it is not a near-term path for broadcasters to get their signals into mobile devices. The 5G Broadcast Barkers make much of the fact that 5G Broadcast is already a 3GPP standard. But what they don’t tell you is that this isn’t self-executing. Currently, no consumer device can receive 5G Broadcast signals. Not one.

To actually get a 5G Broadcast signal into a phone in a consumer’s hands, manufacturers would need to agree to install broadcast band antennas and new radio frequency filtering and front ends in mobile devices, which is exactly what they would need to do to get ATSC 3.0 signals into a phone in a consumer’s hands. One difference? India’s mobile manufacturers are already supporting ATSC 3.0 phones. Right now. As you read this.

B2X Is Coming
In any event, the standardization of the next ATSC 3.0 release, currently referred to as “Broadcast to Everything (B2X),” will accelerate the availability of 3.0 receivers in mobile devices. B2X is a backwards-compatible evolution of ATSC 3.0 that harmonizes with 3GPP standards—including Release 17 and anticipated extensions—providing a true path toward converged broadcast-broadband delivery without abandoning the robust ATSC 3.0 foundation.

So if 5G Broadcast doesn’t offer a faster path to getting broadcast to mobile, what does it offer?

Well, for one thing, 5G Broadcast offers measurably inferior performance. This is partly because it’s not even really 5G. It’s 4G/LTE. In fact, I don’t know why I’m even calling it “5G” Broadcast at this point.

You don’t need to take my word for 4G Broadcast’s technical inferiority. Last summer, Brazil engaged in a lengthy, thoughtful process involving extensive laboratory and field testing to select the ATSC 3.0 physical layer as the over-the-air transmission system for the country’s upgrade to next-generation terrestrial broadcast services.

In response to its original call for proposals, Brazil’s Fórum do Sistema Brasileiro de TV Digital Terrestre (SBTVD) received 31 responses from 21 different organizations worldwide, resulting in 30 candidate technologies. This included four over-the-air physical layer candidate technologies: Advanced ISDB-T, ATSC 3.0, 5G Broadcast, and DTMB-A, all of which were subjected to both laboratory and field testing.

The full results of the first rounds of lab tests are available at https://forumsbtvd.org.br/ under the TV 3.0 Project tab. SBTVD determined that it was necessary to conduct further lab and field testing between the top two candidate standards, Advanced ISDB-T and ATSC 3.0, before making a final recommendation. The full results of the final round of lab tests are also available at the URL referenced above.

So Much More to Offer
Here’s the short version of the lab results: ATSC 3.0 outperformed every other candidate standard and was unanimously recommended by SBTVD. ATSC 3.0 demonstrated greater spectral efficiency, with higher throughput for both fixed indoor reception and high-speed mobile reception. (Somehow the so-called 5G Broadcast advocates never mention that their mobile standard doesn’t work well with devices that are actually mobile.)

But for our purposes today, it’s particularly worth noting that 4G Broadcast didn’t even make the cut for the final evaluation in field testing. That’s right—5G Broadcast advocates are trying to convince broadcasters to adopt an also-ran technology as the future of the industry.

It’s misleading to suggest broadcast television could become instantly scalable just by virtue of being “part of 3GPP.” The broadcast mode of 5G—FeMBMS or 5G Broadcast—is not implemented in those hundreds of millions of phones. It’s a separate mode, with its own antenna, filtering, LNA, silicon and other required components and software stack—none of which is found in current consumer devices.

ATSC 3.0 has so much more to offer and is so much further ahead in the game at this point. Broadcasters are already using ATSC 3.0 to deliver superior pictures and sound to viewers. Broadcasters have spent years working on ATSC 3.0, developing features like broadcast applications that allow broadcasters deploying NextGen TV to offer new interactive features and benefits, such as enhanced content, program restart, hyperlocal weather and programmatic advertising.

These applications also create an easy pathway to extending content created for digital platforms into the broadcast experience. And broadcasters are already developing new business models that will allow the industry to diversify revenue streams and thrive in the decades ahead.

The future of broadcast isn’t about shiny distractions—it’s about illumination. ATSC 3.0 isn’t just a standard, it’s a system designed to serve the public, empower broadcasters and evolve with technology. It’s on the air. It’s in consumer devices. It works. And if you attended the recent ATSC Next Gen Broadcast Conference … it’s all about mobile! While others chase hypotheticals, ATSC 3.0 delivers real value today—and lights the path to tomorrow.

As the media and entertainment (M&E) industry continues to sound the death knell for traditional TV, I’ll make a bold prediction for 2025: Linear will experience a resurgence—of sorts.

I’m not suggesting that the pendulum swing toward streaming viewership will suddenly reverse course, but over the past year, a surprising trend surfaced as media companies—even digital natives—rediscovered linear as a way to drive return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO).

One high-profile U.S. example was Amazon Prime Video’s live streaming of NFL “Thursday Night Football,” which it paired with linear ad sales. While Amazon certainly has the capability to sell the streaming inventory as DAI or addressable impressions, it opted to sell the entire audience. Why? Simple economics. Amazon gets a higher ad price for the massive “TNF” audience than is possible by selling this inventory on an impression basis. This strategy demonstrates the enduring value of linear TV in reaching broad audiences and driving monetization.

With emerging ad tech innovations, it’s possible for big brands to purchase ads that guarantee category exclusivity during a commercial break in the digital environment—something that was previously limited to linear TV. Enabling digital to be sold like linear, with broadcast-quality rules and brand protection, strengthens media companies’ ability to sell inventory in a direct but automated way, which is the key to maximizing streaming revenue. The future of advertising lies in integrating the best of each platform, optimizing the user experience while maximizing returns for advertisers.

In 2025, the market’s focus on the revenue-driving advantages of linear will continue to develop, especially when the goal is to reach large audiences simultaneously. Integrating digital streaming with linear ads is a win-win for broadcasters who can tap into a hybrid model that enables them to engage diverse viewers while leveraging well-established revenue streams. Successful media companies have realised that “linear vs. digital” is the wrong answer. “Linear plus digital” is the path to profitability.

Is the Smart Money Still On-Prem?
For over a decade, cloud solutions have been heralded as the future of broadcasting. On the surface, the choice between on-prem and cloud seems a simple one: on-prem systems require significant investments in physical infrastructure and time, while cloud solutions offer rapid deployment without the maintenance headaches. But the choice isn’t so clear-cut.

With no Olympics or elections driving advertising revenue in 2025, reducing costs will be a top priority across the media industry. One of the ways broadcasters will navigate the challenge is to do the maths to determine whether it’s more cost-effective to run their operations on-prem or in the cloud.

For example, if you’re deploying a disaster recovery solution or operating FAST channels that are never going to touch an antenna, it’s probably cheaper to do it in the cloud. But if you’re running 24/7/365 workflows or have significant investments in studios, IT teams, HVAC systems, and backup generators, on-prem solutions may make better economic sense.

A hybrid strategy may turn out to be the optimal approach, with high-value channels and time-consuming resources run on-prem and the cloud used wherever it makes economic sense, including as a testbed for new ideas and to quickly launch new services. The balance between on-prem and the cloud will change based on percentage of usage, the kind of workflows and solutions needed over time, and the fluctuating cost of the cloud.

A one-and-done calculation won’t cut it in a rapidly changing industry. So as we head into 2025 and beyond, broadcasters may need to regularly revisit the TCO maths to determine whether on-prem, cloud or a hybrid of both will best meet their unique needs and budgets.

Where Cloud Makes Sense (and an On-Ramp to Get There)
While keeping things on-prem makes operational and economic sense for many broadcast workflows, one area where the balance has skewed in favor of the cloud is remote production. The Paris Summer Olympics stood out in what was a banner year for sports, which helped accelerate the move toward remote and cloud-based production thanks to SMPTE ST 2110 and the native IP protocols used for contribution to cloud.

One example is the synthesis between 2110 and JPEG XS—basically native IP speaking to native IP via VSF TR-07 and TR-08 technical recommendations—which was proven on the world stage at the Paris Olympics. We’ve also seen extensive use of H.264 via SRT in cases where the cost vs. bandwidth trade-off favors higher compression. These advancements not only exceeded expectations, but also established valuable proof points and case studies, which will help drive broader industry adoption.

In 2025, sports broadcasting will continue to be a battleground between established broadcasters and digital newcomers. It’s no secret that rights holders and broadcasters are actively seeking ways to move more live sports content into CTV and live streaming environments—after all, it’s the most valuable content in both traditional TV and modern streaming. For production environments already leveraging ST 2110, the fastest, easiest, most affordable way to make that move is to use JPEG XS as the on-ramp.

This article initially appeared on TV Tech sister brand TVB Europe.

Connected TVs have revolutionized video consumption and transformed the digital advertising landscape. And as we’ve seen over recent years, an increasing number of streaming providers and broadcasters are turning to advertising to support growth.

However, to maximize this revenue stream personalization of ad content is key. When ads are tailored to align with the viewer’s preferences and behavior, they resonate more deeply, driving higher engagement and conversion rates. This benefits broadcasters by strengthening their appeal to advertisers, who naturally want maximum return on their investments. Yet personalization in advertising remains a huge challenge.

Ad personalization on CTVs relies heavily on the use of tracking cookies, but growing privacy concerns, regulatory shifts and a widespread aversion of third-party cookies are making this model unworkable. And so, the industry needs a new advertising strategy—one that respects user privacy while still delivering effective ads. Many are turning to contextual advertising as a potential solution. While this advertising model is itself not new, what is new, is the use of AI to significantly enhance it, making it much more powerful and effective.

Unlocking Contextual Advertising’s Potential
Rather than relying on personal data, contextual advertising works by tailoring the ad to match the content. As the name suggests, contextual advertising, it’s all about context. By matching ads to the content being viewed, contextual advertising aims to deliver an enjoyable ad experience that feels natural to the viewer.

For instance, if the viewer is watching sports content, then ads showing sports clothing brands might be selected. This alignment enhances the likelihood of viewer engagement, because the ads are relevant to the immediate context of the content they are watching. Importantly, this strategy also aligns with evolving privacy expectations, allowing broadcasters to provide personalized experiences without intrusive data collection.

While contextual advertising can be effective on its own, AI takes it to the next level by analyzing video scenes in incredible detail. AI can be used to identify key elements such as mood, setting and pace, as well as objects in the frame, to create a precise match between ads and content on the screen at any given moment.

For example, if a scene shows a person on a sandy beach heading to the sea to surf, with the power of AI, contextual advertising tools may suggest advertising for surfboards, watersports equipment, beach wear, and outdoor adventure activity vacations. Or if the scene features a person chopping fresh vegetables while preparing to cook a meal, suggested advertising may include kitchen knife sets, fresh vegetable delivery services, or healthy meal subscription service kits. Similarly, if the content shows a person practicing yoga, contextual advertising tools may suggest ads on yoga equipment, fitness apparel, wellness supplements, or healthy living and wellness apps and services.

Engagement = Conversion
The reasoning behind this approach is that if the viewer is already watching content that features the things being advertised, or similar, it’s reasonable to assume that they may appeal to or interest the viewer to some degree. If ads are delivered that the viewer is more likely to be interested in and engage with, this leads to higher rates of conversion.

Additionally, while standard contextual advertising works to identify objects in the scene, AI can analyze the content at a much deeper level. It can help determine what mood the viewer is in so that ads can be placed that they will be most receptive to at that moment. This enables streaming providers to select ads that resonate with a scene’s emotional tone, creating a more immersive and engaging experience for the viewer.

Pairing contextual advertising technology with prediction tools can also help video providers to optimize ad placement for maximum impact. These types of tools can measure conversion rates enabling video providers to track viewer engagement patterns to identify when viewers are most attentive or most likely to convert.

Shaping the Future of CTV Advertising
By incorporating AI into contextual advertising strategies, broadcasters can deliver hyper-personalized ads that have higher relevance to the viewer, at precisely the right moment when the viewer is most likely to take action. This combination of relevance and precision is reshaping the way media companies approach advertising, ensuring an enhanced viewing experience, improved conversion rates for advertisers, and increased ad revenue for service providers.

This approach offers broadcasters a solution to a major challenge: how to deliver impactful, personalized ads without relying on personal tracking data. As such, AI-powered contextual advertising has the potential to transform CTV advertising, and it is only going to get better as AI technology evolves and improves.

As the reliance on advertising to support growth intensifies across the media landscape, the adoption of AI-driven advertising solutions will become a critical differentiator. Broadcasters and video providers who invest in these technologies now will be well-positioned to lead the industry into a new era of smarter, more effective advertising.

There have never been more options for broadcasters to optimize their business with cloud-based technology. A current and growing trend is the accelerated adoption of cloud storage. Cloud storage provides a new level of flexibility for broadcasters, creating new efficiencies and cost-savings, while meeting security and disaster recovery (DR) demands. The cloud also opens a door for the latest innovations, such as machine-learning (ML) for enhanced metadata.

Some broadcasters have serviceable methods for storing their data locally and will be inclined to take the view, “if it ain’t broke, etc.” There is, however, an opportunity cost to continued reliance on on-prem storage. Cloud storage offers far more than simply a safety net for DR. 

There are the obvious benefits that are inherent to the cloud: unlimited scale and cost-efficiencies that come from not having to build and maintain physical facilities for archiving locally, as well as real opportunities for how content in the cloud can be handled, both for proxy and high-resolution files.

Most broadcasters today are not just transmitting channels through a broadcast antenna, cable, or satellite, but are also connecting content with multiple endpoints simultaneously, whether that's direct to consumer (D2C) or to other partners with licensing agreements. There are additional operations that can be done to that content while it's in the cloud. One example of that is metadata enhancement.

Using machine learning (ML) and/or artificial intelligence (AI) means additional metadata can be created, whether it's something simple like creating a text transcript from the audio, or something much more sophisticated, such as documenting what is in the video itself, from a certain personality to a weather event.

There is a great deal of capabilities like these that are much more accessible to broadcasters in a cloud environment than on prem. Cloud storage also provides the ability to future-proof content. If new metadata technologies emerge, they can be applied to whatever content is in the cloud, whether its new or old.

DR is another area where cloud-based storage can pay off. Hosting content in a cloud data center, built specifically to minimize risk, and available in multiple geographies, gives broadcasters peace of mind knowing their content is always available.

The financial consequences of an outage, though considerable, are not the only reasons to be prepared. There is a reputational cost to outages and a potential loss of customers who could rapidly lose trust in your service. Since the risk factors for outages, which range from extreme weather events to, increasingly, ransomware attacks, are never going away, it is reasonable to assume that there could be a major disruption of one form or another. The cloud provides broadcasters with the confidence that they can continue through any eventuality without lasting harm to their business.

Another benefit is the synergy between cloud storage and cloud-based editing tools. This is a new trend that I believe the industry is facing today. Ubiquitous access to a piece of content across an enterprise, not just for a singular station, but for any endpoint, makes it easy for a user to edit the content and prepare it for broadcast. The cloud provides even greater access to more content, faster, and from anywhere.

A potential obstacle to adoption of cloud storage is cost. Placing all your content in hi-res with a cloud provider comes with an OPEX commitment. But broadcasters can navigate their way through this by working with a third party that benefits from lower costs as economies of scale kick in: the third party pays for more storage, pooling storage costs across several broadcasters, while ensuring that each one has its own, dedicated, and secure directory. By leveraging the buying power of its customer base, the third-party provider enables individual broadcasters to receive the full benefits of the cloud while saving the expense of going to a cloud provider directly. 

The cloud is fast becoming the standard approach for new media service storage. The scalability aspect of cloud storage has always been a strong incentive in its own right. Today, the additional gains in efficiency and agility make cloud storage a powerful behind-the-scenes tool for optimization as well as access. From a business standpoint, the cloud creates significant cost efficiencies while creating new opportunities to enhance content and expand a broadcaster’s offering to the end user.

NEW YORK - I have seen the future of television, and it looks incredibly sharp. As always, though, the next leap in pure technology will be balanced against the needs and limitations of the commercial marketplace.

I speak of 8K, or specifically NHK’s Super Hi-Vision system. The company has been conducting broadcast demos in the U.S. lately, following a widely tracked experiment in 2014 with World Cup matches being beamed to sites in Japan and Brazil. NHK is aiming to start test satellite broadcasts in 2016, full satellite broadcasts in 2018 and further accelerate the promo push in 202 when Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympics.

Two 8K demos in recent weeks, one in June during the Women’s World Cup and the other at Yankee Stadium on July 17, left me convinced of the aesthetic potential but dubious of some of the practicalities. First, a confession. I have watched baseball avidly for my entire life. Soccer, while enjoyable in limited doses, is less of a passion point for me. So I will start with observations about the former national pastime. The ballgame I saw in 8K, a nighttime tilt between the Yanks and the Seattle Mariners, offered a completely new way to see the game, as if the eye doctor turned the dial to 11. The level of detail, due to the fact that 8K is 16 times sharper than current HDTV (2K on a Blu-ray disc or often 1080p via a set-top box), is extraordinary. Features that are usually just blurry brush strokes stand out in remarkable clarity: sunflower seed shells littering the field; ripples in the pitchers’ uniforms; brand names on clothing worn by fans 10 rows deep.

Then there’s the sound, which is dramatically more immersive than traditional 5.1 channel systems—Super Hi-Vision delivers 22.2-multichannel sound. The crack of the bat, the ball hitting leather, anything properly miked on the field reaches through the set and grabs you. The same was true in the soccer demo—watching Hope Solo boot a ball two-thirds of the way downfield seemed all the more impressive when the kick thudded in my chest cavity.

In these wonders, however, lie some logistical challenges. How likely are most viewers to install 22 speakers into their home viewing environment? (My wife already balked at five.) NHK does say it is “researching and developing ways for people to enjoy the 22.2-multichannel sound experience in limited audio environments, such as those with fewer speakers.” Then, of course, there are some key variables with the image quality—while the higher frame rate and greater bit depth certainly make the test experience compelling, how likely will “true 8K” be when delivered through the current distribution ecosystem? Already, as B&C’s resident tech guru, contributing editor George Winslow, points out, research shows how far short of 1080p current programming labeled as “HD” often falls. Unlike the tests I witnessed, which had no announcers, no on-screen graphics and only occasional replays, a commercial sports broadcast would be put through a much more dramatic filter. The color, sound and atmosphere will all be blended with the commercial objectives of networks and brands. The result will be something shy of the pure marvel I saw at Yankee Stadium and, on an even larger screen, at Fox’s Daryl Zanuck Theatre. What’s more, even 4K TV sets and programming remain in a fairly nascent stage, and some on Wall Street believe they have been a lot less of a business driver than anticipated. The CEA projects unit shipments of 4K UHD displays to hit 4.4 million in 2015, a 210% increase from ’14, with revenue more than doubling, to $5.3 billion. Not chicken scratch, but far from revolutionary.

A filmmaker and commercial director friend of mine, Craig Teper, salivated over the purity and potential of the Yankee Stadium experience, but he conceded that his was a shooter’s enthusiasm. “If you’re making something, you want 4K and 8K. It’s the best,” he told me. For the viewer, the question is going to be, as it has been forever, what price beauty? As spectacular as many 8K moments were for me, I can’t imagine paying the kind of premium I do to get HD. And the migration to HD came in a world before OTTs and skinny bundles. In the current era, technical upgrades might rank below items from the increasingly a la carte programming menu.