Weigel Broadcasting and DirecTV have announced a distribution deal that will make Weigel’s flagship network, MeTV, available nationwide on DirecTV and DirecTV Stream. 

Starting June 10, MeTV became available in HD on both DirecTV and DirecTV Stream (Ch. 77) for customers with the Choice and above packages. MeTV has been available to U-verse homes since its December 2012 debut (Ch. 136) and added HD coverage three years later (Ch. 1136).

“MeTV is ‘Memorable Entertainment Television,’ making it a uniquely valuable addition to the DirecTV channel lineup nationwide,” said Neal Sabin, vice-chairman of Weigel Broadcasting Co. “We couldn’t be happier to seal this deal which allows us to add MeTV beyond the existing markets and deliver some of the most cherished and timeless television ever made to DirecTV subscribers coast-to-coast.”

“This agreement provides Weigel additional reach to grow its viewership and sponsors, while furthering DirecTV’s national and local programming interests,” added Linda Burakoff, senior vice president of content and programming at DirecTV. “We continue to work creatively, and respectfully, with Weigel and other broadcasters to identify our mutual priorities, and then develop them together to expand our customers, sponsors and future prospects.”

IRVING, Texas—Nexstar Media Inc. has announced the promotion of Bina Roy to vice president and general manager of  its multicast networks.

In her new role, Roy is responsible for business development and affiliate partnerships with more than 15 networks providing programming across the company’s portfolio of more than 600 subchannels. She  will also oversee efforts to maximize the use of Nexstar’s broadcast spectrum in 116 television markets across the country. She will continue reporting to Sean Compton, president of Nexstar’s Networks Division.  

Ms. Roy has served as senior affiliate sales director for the Networks Division since September 2019. In that role, she oversaw the daily operations of Nexstar’s two owned and operated multicast networks,  Antenna TV and Rewind TV. She was instrumental in the launch of both networks and has grown their  distribution significantly.  

“This promotion is a way of recognizing Bina’s total dedication to the growth of our multicast networks  over the last several years,” said Compton. “Thanks to Bina’s hard work and focus, Antenna TV is now  available in more than 113 million television households throughout 92 percent of the United States, and  in just six short months, Rewind TV has become one of the country’s fastest growing networks. She is  talented, innovative and experienced, and I am extremely pleased to promote her to this new position.” 

Before joining Nexstar, Ms. Roy served as programming and affiliate manager for Tribune  Broadcasting. In that role, she played pivotal roles in the creation of the CW Network’s talk show, “The  Bill Cunningham Show,” as well as the syndicated news programs, “Eye Opener” and “News Fix.” She was also responsible for regional syndication broadcasts for the Chicago Cubs, White Sox, and Blackhawks. 

Ms. Roy got her start in television broadcasting as an NBC Page in 1996. Her career has taken her to war zones as a producer for CBS News Productions and into homes as newspaper columnist, national radio  host and a local television reporter and anchor. Ms. Roy attended Middlebury College and earned her MBA from Iona College. 

WASHINGTON—Non-commercial groups America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) see a “gap” in a previous order regarding NextGen TV regarding simulcasting of multicast streams that could impact their ability to fully bring ATSC 3.0 services to their viewers. As a result, the two organizations (PTV collectively) are backing a recent effort by the NAB.

In a joint filing to the FCC, PTV has thrown its support behind the NAB’s Petition of Declaratory Ruling calling for a clarification, and possibly new rule changes, to allow ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 stations to be flexible with multicast streams.

The original filing by the NAB asked that the FCC clarify whether its existing rules permit broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 to partner with other stations to host its simulcasted ATSC 1.0 multicast streams and/or to establish rules allowing the multicast of either ATSC 1.0 or ATSC 3.0 streams by another host station. NAB says that these rules will help preserve current existing programming as stations transition to NextGen TV.

PTV agrees, saying in its filing that “stations should not have to ‘choose’ between continuing to broadcast their existing multicast streams and participation in key new developments of Next Gen broadcasting. The rules should be clarified with regarding to multicast streams and simulcasting.”

In addition, PTV advocates that the FCC treat ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 simulcast signals used during the deployment period as operating under the license of the originating station rather than the transmitting station to avoid issues regarding advertising and licensee/content responsibility. While the FCC issued a ruling similar in 2017, PTV believes that greater clarification is now needed to resolve any potential issues.

Putting PTV stations’ dilemma into context, the filing cited an incident when a station participating in the NextGen TV launch in its market as an ATSC 1.0 host could not transmit its second HD channel in ATSC 3.0 due to regulatory concerns about splitting its streams between two ATSC 3.0 station hosts and the ATSC 3.0 host splitting between multiple ATSC 1.0 hosts.

“For these reasons, PTV respectfully urges the FCC to issue a Declaratory Ruling clarifying that its existing regulatory framework for the hosting of simulcast primary programming streams also applies to simulcast multicast streams,” the filing concludes. “PTV also asks the commission to promptly expand the application of these rules to cover the transmission of ATSC 1.0 multicast streams regardless of whether those streams are simulcast in ATSC 3.0. PTV stations want to be full participants in Next Gen deployments—not relegated to the sidelines due to their robust multicast streams."

Streaming has simultaneously changed the landscape of broadcasting and how people watch video. Demand for streamed content increased dramatically during the COVID-19 crisis, which got developers thinking about the future of delivery. As Jason Thibeault of the Streaming Video Alliance wrote in Streaming Media magazine, "the pandemic has taught us that the internet is not going to break... but we need to be proactive rather than reactive to stay in front of the curve that is coming."

This curve—the shift to more live broadcasting on platforms such as YouTube—and what could accommodate it were addressed in last week’s SMPTE2020 virtual session, “Next Generation OTT Distribution Architecture Supporting Multicast ABR (adaptive bit rate), HTTP/3 with QUIC and TLS (transport layer security) 1.3.”

During the session, Allan Hammershøj, chief operating officer of streaming technology company mediathand, and Aleksander Nowak, junior site reliability engineer with software developer Dixa, looked at new technologies for delivering more efficient and stable streamed video.

LINEAR FOR LIVE

Nowak outlined that while time shifting worked well for “genre viewing” (drama, comedy, entertainment and documentaries), linear viewing is still the main way people watched news, live sport and big events. Part of the reason for this is that cellular continues to dominate available bandwidth, with the cost per viewer at the CDN (content delivery network) rising exponentially. There are also technical problems, such as protocol ossification and head of line blocking, resulting in broken packets.

The answer, Nowak and Hammershøj said, is to find "the middle ground" between unicast and broadcast—in other words, multicast. This, they stated, could be achieved by using the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) QUIC general-purpose transport layer network protocol. The standard supports low latency transport, is backwards compatible with HTTP/2 and can be used with QAuth open standard authorization and PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange) security.

To prove the concept, tests using QUIC with an IP bridge over satellite have been carried out in Denmark. ATSC 3.0/DVB-T2 signals were transmitted from CPH (Copenhagen TV) to the SES teleport in Luxembourg, to an Astra satellite at 19.2-degrees East. Signals were then received back at CPH's R&D department, where they could be played back on any device standard for OTT.

Nowak said that the technology "showed a lot of potential and was up and running." The intention is that by adding an adaptive IP layer to adaptive bitrate content, it will be possible to deliver something flexible enough for all platforms. The conclusion was that QUIC is "ideal" for content delivery on any IP network. 

There are plans in the future to implement multicast at the cloud edge (5G), which would provide opportunities for both content providers and telecoms companies. This would involve hybrid ABR for hybrid delivery over any broadband and broadcast technologies, with a multicast gateway due to be ready by the first quarter of 2021.

WASHINGTON—As broadcasters continue to deploy ATSC 3.0 (aka “NextGen TV”) nationwide, the NAB is asking the FCC to clarify its rules surrounding TV stations’ content and distribution partnerships during the transition from 1.0 to 3.0. 

In comments filed with the FCC this week, NAB is specifically requesting the FCC:

• Clarify that its existing rules permit a station transmitting in ATSC 3.0 to partner with one or more other stations that would host the first station’s simulcasted ATSC 1.0 multicast streams to preserve existing service in the market; and
• Establish rules permitting a station transmitting in ATSC 3.0 to partner with one or more other stations that would host the first station’s ATSC 1.0 multicast streams—regardless of whether those ATSC 1.0 multicast streams are simulcast in ATSC 3.0—and also permit a station transmitting in ATSC 1.0 to partner with one or more other stations to host content transmitted in ATSC 3.0. 

“Grant of these requests will help preserve existing programming viewers enjoy today and will also help speed the rollout of Next Gen TV and its improved features and services to American viewers,” the NAB said. 

The association told the FCC that the commission’s rules requiring the maintenance of  1.0 service while simulcasting in ATSC 3.0 without any new spectrum allocated is forcing broadcasters to be “efficient and creative.”

“To those ends, broadcasters respectfully request the Commission to clarify and amend its rules to facilitate critical carriage arrangements among stations that are parties to an ATSC 3.0 deployment plan,” NAB told the commission, and require responsibility for programming to the licensed owners of the programming, rather than the station distributing such programming. 

“This approach is wholly in keeping with the Commission’s existing rules and its goal of encouraging successful ATSC 3.0 deployments,” NAB added.

The NAB is also asking the commission to clarify or make a new rule that would allow an ATSC 3.0 station seeking to preserve its 1.0 multicast streams can partner with other stations where the 3.0 station will not be simulcasting the multicast streams in 3.0. 

NAB said this change would “not raise novel public policy concerns” nor would it create new carriage rights for multicast streams, which are not entitled to must-carry carriage. 

“Similarly, it would create no new station licenses or alienable interests,” NAB said. “Each station would continue to have a single license as the Commission’s rules provide—but instead of that single license reflecting only one authorized host channel, it could reflect more than one to introduce ATSC 3.0 to the marketplace. The Commission would simply be making clear that the originator of a particular multicast stream, not the host, would be the sole party responsible for ensuring compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements regarding hosted multicast streams. 

WASHINGTON—NAB, legal counsel for Pearl TV and the general counsel of Meredith met last week with staff of the FCC Media Bureau to discuss the transition to NextGen TV and recommend a change in what broadcasters submit to the agency as part of their ATSC 3.0 license applications to allay concerns over possible contractual indemnification issues.

At issue is possible regulatory uncertainty created when broadcasters seeking to maintain as much of their existing programming—including multicast streams—transmit multicast channels via a facility not identified on the 3.0 license of an originating station.

“…[T]he Commission might not retain enforcement authority over a station that originated programming if that station was transmitting additional multicast streams over a facility not reflected on the ATSC 3.0 license of the originating station,” wrote Patrick McFadden, NAB associate general counsel, in an Jan. 27 letter to the FCC notifying the agency of the Jan. 23 meeting.

“This could create complex contractual indemnification concerns that could complicate [NextGen TV] deployment,” the letter said.

Noncommercial educational broadcasters in particular could face “acute” challenges because many are restricted or prohibited for agreeing to indemnification, the letter said.

As a possible solution, the parties recommended broadcasters include an attachment to their 3.0 license application with information spelling out additional channels they plan to use to maintain programming during the transition and that the FCC note the additional channels on the face of a station’s 3.0 license.

Doing so will “preserve clear lines of Commission enforcement authority without requiring changes to the existing application forms,” the letter said.

Unlike the analog-to-DTV transition in which stations were temporarily granted a second channel to multicast in order to protect analog viewers while transitioning the public to digital service, the voluntary transition to 3.0 will be done with no additional channel assignment and rely on local lighthouse stations and channel-sharing agreements among broadcasters to maintain 1.0 service while rolling out NextGen TV. 

The letter is available online.

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s NextGen TV coverage, see our NextGen TV silo.