SEOUL, South Korea—Korea Radio Promotion Association (RAPA) and Public Media Venture Group (PMVG) have announced a two-year collaboration to examine and implement various NextGen TV, aka ATSC 3.0, applications and use cases.

The move aims to facilitate full adoption of NextGen TV at public stations in the United States. The collaboration will leverage RAPA’s leadership as a primary architect of the NextGen TV transition in South Korea, they said.

RAPA and PMVG recently executed a Memorandum of Understanding. The two are working together to establish a 3.0 demonstration at a PMVG-owned low-power television station. The station, W35DZ-D in Algood, Tenn., was donated to PMVG in 2022 by Lowcountry 34 Media, an LPTV owner based out of Beaufort, S.C.

Constructed in collaboration with PMVG member station WCTE of Cookeville, Tenn., W35DZ-D will serve as a platform to showcase the capabilities and benefits of ATSC 3.0 technology. These use cases and applications will be designed to be replicated and expanded to stations throughout the public media system, PMVG said.

RAPA has designated DigiCAP, an ATSC 3.0 solution provider based in Seoul, to provide the necessary technology solutions for the demonstration station. DigiCAP will collaborate with PMVG to set up the Cookeville station and work with PMVG and RAPA to develop the applications and use cases that will run on top of the demonstration station.

PMVG and RAPA will also collaborate on securing deployment capital, equipment and new partnerships. The Cookeville demonstration station is slated to launch in August 2023.

“We are thrilled to embark on this partnership with RAPA, DigiCAP, and WCTE Cookeville,” said PMVG CEO Marc Hand. “This collaboration will showcase the full capabilities and benefits of NextGen TV and help pave the way for new, vital business applications to sustain public media and to enable an exciting range of new services to local communities.”

More information is available on the PMVG website.  

WASHINGTON—The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is set to host a free webinar designed for low power broadcasters that will cover a number of topics dealing with the Emergency Alert System, including instructions on how to register and file in the EAS Test Reporting System.

WebEx will be the host for the webinar, or attendees can copy and past https://www.fcc.gov/EAS-test-requirements-and-reporting in their web browser to gain access. Questions for the webinar can be emailed to alerting@fcc.gov. For those unable to attend live, the webinar will be archived at www.fcc.gov/live.

Open captioning or other accommodations will be made available upon request to fcc504@fcc.gov, or by calling the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.

The webinar is scheduled for July 11 at from 1-1:45 p.m. ET. Pre-registration is not required to attend.