McLEAN, Va.—Tegna has elevated four longtime executives to senior vice president, expanding their leadership roles in legal, content, human resources and finance.

Marc Sher was elevated to senior vice president and general counsel, overseeing all legal matters, including compliance, contracts, litigation, regulatory matters and risk management. Sher, who joined Tegna in 2013, was most recently vice president, associate general counsel and secretary.

Raquel Amparo advanced to senior vice president of content, leading Tegna’s content strategy, creation and content partnerships across platforms. Amparo, an Emmy-winning journalist and Kneeland Fellow with more than 20 years of experience, had been vice president of content for Tegna’s Texas markets.

Melissa Jones was named senior vice president of human resources, tasked with directing Tegna’s people strategy, including talent acquisition, employee relations, compensation and benefits and organizational development. Jones joined Tegna in 2016 as VP of human resources and leads the HR business partner team across Tegna’s 64 stations in 51 markets.

And Pamela Long was promoted to senior vice president of finance, managing Tegna’s financial operations, including budgeting, forecasting, financial reporting and capital planning. Most recently VP of finance and operations, Long has been with Tegna since 2015.

“Each of these individuals has a proven record of measurable results built on experience, strong instincts and sound judgment,” CEO Patrick Paolini said. “As our leadership team continues to grow, these are the qualities that will shape Tegna’s future.”

Nexstar Media Group acquired Tegna in March, but the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on April 17 issued a “Hold Separate Order” delaying the integration of the two companies as antitrust challenges work their way through the courts.

IRVING, Texas—The Nexstar Media Charitable Foundation has announced it would contribute $25,000 each to two of West Virginia’s largest food banks, the Mountaineer Food Bank and the Facing Hunger Food Bank, to help those individuals and families affected by the interruption in payments from the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

More than 270,000 West Virginians rely on SNAP to help pay for groceries and put food on the table, according to Nexstar; roughly one of every six residents in the state participates in SNAP. In many instances, SNAP funds are the difference between eating healthy or going without food altogether, Nexstar reported.

SNAP funding has been reduced by the ongoing federal government shutdown.

“Service to the community is one of Nexstar’s core values,” said Nexstar Founder, Chairman and CEO Perry Sook, who also serves as chairman of the Nexstar Media Charitable Foundation. “In West Virginia, hunger and food insecurity are very real threats and the need is great. Our journalists in West Virginia are out every day covering this local story and what the loss of SNAP funding means to the people who rely on the program. We take our responsibilities as a member of the community very seriously and we are pleased to be able to step forward and help with these donations to the Mountaineer Food Bank and the Facing Hunger Food Bank.”

Last week, West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey launched a statewide donation drive supporting food banks across the state and announced that the state would contribute $5 million to the effort. Nexstar’s five local television stations serving West Virginia immediately joined in the campaign, with WTRF-TV Wheeling, WBOY-TV Clarksburg, WOWK Charleston/Huntington, WVNS-TV Bluefield/Beckley and WDVM-TV Washington, D.C., covering the crisis and airing public service announcements, posting stories to social media and providing ongoing news updates on their station websites.

“We are deeply grateful to Nexstar for stepping up and supporting our work with a generous gift of $25,000,“ Mountaineer Food Bank CEO Chad Morrison said. “When challenges arise for our neighbors across West Virginia, it’s reassuring to know we have partners like Nexstar who help us rise to meet them. Together, we continue to prove that West Virginians are resilient and committed to caring for one another in times of need.”

Cynthia Kirkhart, CEO of the Facing Hunger Food Bank, added: “Facing Hunger Food Bank, our team, and most importantly, the neighbors living in the communities at the center of our work, are so grateful for this gracious support from Nexstar Media Charitable Foundation. This gift alone will provide 225,000 additional meals at a critical time of need. We have enjoyed a long partnership with our local Nexstar stations through volunteerism and support, and the communities we each serve rely on their information and news to shape our experiences. As we continue to navigate these uncertain times, there is comfort in the support of people who live and serve in our communities.”

The Nexstar Media Charitable Foundation contributes to and works with public charities and nonprofit organizations to improve the communities where Nexstar Media Group and its subsidiaries do business. The foundation’s forerunner was established in 1958; it now makes donations of approximately $350,000 annually.

IRVING, Texas—Nexstar Media Group, Inc. has announced that its television stations helped raise nearly $1.4 million to assist the victims of flooding in Central Texas earlier this month.

In addition, the Nexstar Media Charitable Foundation has donated $25,000 each to two organizations (The San Angelo Area Foundation and The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country), for a total of $50,000 to assist with relief efforts in Tom Green County, Kerr County, and the surrounding areas.

In addition to live around-the-clock news coverage of the catastrophic flooding provided by Nexstar’s Texas television stations and the company’s national cable news network, NewsNation, several of the company’s television stations across the country initiated fundraising drives to assist with relief efforts, the broadcaster reported.

Led by Nexstar stations in San Angelo, Abilene, and Austin, Texas, those fundraising efforts included an hour-long flood-relief telethon that aired simultaneously on KLST-TV in San Angelo and KTAB-TV in Abilene on July 10 and raised nearly $1.4 million.

In Austin, KXAN-TV aired continuous coverage of the flooding and its aftermath and launched a custom made microsite, KXAN.COM/FloodRelief, where viewers could find more information about a variety of resources and relief organizations aimed at helping those in need.

The station also developed and aired 22 different public service announcements spotlighting different relief organizations throughout the area, and directed viewers to ten different charitable entities assisting the residents of Central Texas. Throughout the crisis, KXAN-TV employees have volunteered with local relief organizations, helping to gather and distribute supplies. Finally, dozens of Nexstar TV stations across the country, including properties in Chicago; Buffalo, N.Y.; Las Vegas; Denver; and Bakersfield, Calif., aired a QR code linking viewers to the KXAN website and ways to donate to local relief and charitable organizations helping with the recovery in Central Texas.

“This is what being a local broadcasting company is all about—continuous live news coverage of an event affecting tens of thousands of people, assisting in the recovery efforts, bringing people together, and giving back to the communities we serve,” Nexstar Chairman and CEO Perry Sook said. “In addition to the fundraising and volunteer efforts of our television stations, the Nexstar Media Charitable Foundation is honored to be contributing $50,000 to two organizations directly involved in helping the residents of Central Texas to rebuild their lives.”

IRVING, Texas—Nexstar Media Group, the nation’s largest broadcast station group, has offered investors a new presentation that highlights the company's growth potential. Nexstar’s large audience reach, government deregulation, the potential loosening of ownership caps, growth in retransmission fees, NextGen TV and larger media trends favoring broadcasters should all help boost revenue and profits, the company said.

Even though Federal Communications Commission ownership caps limit station groups to covering 39% of U.S. homes, Nexstar reported that its stations actually reached around 70% if you remove the UHF station discounts.

Currently, Nexstar’s local stations reach about 103 million unique visitors, the company said, and its presented data showing it has the largest U.S. household reach of any broadcasters at 70%, followed by TelevisaUnivision (45%), Tegna (40%), Fox (39%), Sinclair (38%), NBCUniversal (38%), CBS (37%), and Gray Media (36%). ABC stations reach about 22%, Nexstar reported.

The presentation cited ATSC 3.0, The CW and NewsNation as potential organic growth opportunities and said deregulation and slowing pay TV subscriber attrition could further boost its stock.

The presentation also went against conventional wisdom, which sees retrans fees as stagnating in era of cord-cutting by arguing that broadcast programming has gained market share among all linear TV viewing, growing from 40% of linear TV viewing in 2020 to 47% in 2024. That has made broadcast programming more valuable. “If broadcast stations were paid retransmission fees equivalent to their ratings, there would be +44% upside to distribution revenue for the industry,” Nexstar said.

The station group said about 60% of its retrans pacts were up for renewal in 2025, which would impact 2026 results.

It also highlighted its local news operations, noting it employs 6,000 local journalists who generate over 316,000 hours per year of local programming. In addition, it has over 16,000 local salespeople who have relationships with more than 40,000 businesses and two-thirds of its advertising revenue is from Nexstar programming.

In terms of digital, the company noted that it has 138 websites, 229 mobile applications and 60 connected TV apps. As of March, it ranked as the sixth-largest digital news property in terms of unique visitors.

In terms of deregulation, Nexstar’s presentation argued “elimination of the [FCC TV-station] ownership cap could enable Nexstar to make additional acquisitions of stations in markets it is not currently in” and allow the company to add additional network affiliates in markets where it currently operates.

With respect to ATSC 3.0, Nexstar repeated widely cited data from a BIA Kelsey study in 2021, which has not been updated. That study found that the industry could bring in between $6.4 billion to $15 billion a year in new 3.0 revenue with $10.7 billion being the most likely scenario.

Currently Nexstar is part of the EdgeBeam Wireless joint venture with Gray, Sinclair and E.W. Scripps that aims to monetize their spectrum and 3.0 capabilities.

Nexstar Media Group says three of its TV stations in Grand Rapids, Mich., Sioux Falls, SD, and Panama City, Fla., will begin carrying primetime entertainment and live sports programming of The CW Network on one of their related digital subchannels.

“The addition of CW programming to these Nexstar-owned stations will bring the number of Nexstar and partner-owned CW affiliates to 45, covering more than 39% of U.S. TV Households,” said Andrew Alford, President of Nexstar’s broadcasting division.  “As The CW’s #1 affiliate group, we are very pleased to be taking this step, especially as several new entertainment shows get set to premier and ACC college basketball moves deeper into its season—WWE NXT in Fall 2024 also will be a big hit.  As a result, our CW-affiliated stations will be able to offer advertisers even more opportunities to reach viewers.”

he CW reaches 100% of U.S. households and delivers 15 hours of primetime entertainment programming per week and more than 300 hours of live sports annually, as the broadcast home to LIV Golf, ACC football and basketball games, “Inside the NFL,” WWE NXT beginning in 2024 and NASCAR Xfinity Series beginning in 2025.  The fully ad-supported CW App, with more than 96 million downloads to date, is available for free to consumers on all major digital platforms.

“These stations are great additions to the CW family,” said Dennis Miller, President of The CW Network.  “Each station has a deep relationship with its viewers, advertisers, and the communities it serves, which is exactly what we look for in an affiliate—each will be a superb ambassador for our programming.”

NEW YORK—Nexstar Media Group’s NewsNation and WPIX New York debuted two new studios this week, located at The Daily News Building on 42nd St. in New York. The new studios will host operations of both stations. The NewsNation cable and OTT news service went 24/7 on Monday. WPIX is owned by Mission Broadcasting and managed by Nexstar.

Based in Chicago, NewsNation’s new New York facility features two control rooms on the second and 10th floors. The 10th floor includes the studio for the Dan Abrams Show and Cuomo, however Cuomo will eventually move to the second floor. 

The studios encompass approximately 1,000 square feet and feature 359 LED panels and 112 TVs between the newsroom, feed room and control rooms and have the capacity to do 16 simultaneous live shots.

Nexstar Chairman and CEO Perry Sook lauded the Nexstar board for putting its financial support behind the new bureau at an opening ceremony of the new facility this week, adding “we wouldn’t spend that money if we didn’t believe in the mission.”

NextTV has the rest of the story.  

DirecTV has asked two TV station groups to return their local stations to the DirecTV lineup for the next two weeks for the Nov. 8 midterm elections, and in essence suspending the current blackout. 

A total of 27 local stations owned by Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting have been removed from DirecTV’s lineup while the groups battle it out over retrans fees. The two groups are managed and controlled by Nexstar Media Group, the nation’s largest TV station group.  

"DirecTV has a standing offer to  both Mission and White Knight, strongly urging the two broadcasters to return all stations immediately to  impacted DirecTV customers in 25 Nielsen DMAs,” the company said in a press release. “In return, DirecTV will pay Mission and White Knight  whatever higher retransmission consent rates the parties eventually agree upon retroactively to the date the  signals are reinstated."  

DirecTV accused Nexstar of shirking its public obligations. “Nexstar Media Group…is currently no longer allowing access to local programming and important political conversation ahead of the mid-terms to an estimated 4 million homes across the U.S.,” the company said.

White Knight Broadcasting pulled its NBC and Fox affiliates from DirecTV on Oct. 7. Nexstar then pulled its  local broadcast stations and national news service NewsNation from Verizon Fios on Oct. 14. Mission  went dark on DirecTV on Oct. 21.  

“This is a critical time in American political life,” DirecTV added. “We are less than two weeks from one of the most important  Congressional midterm elections in American History, and gubernatorial elections in 36 states. The results of  this midterm will have a profound impact on some of the most important political, public health and economic  issues of our time."  

DirecTV accused the station groups of hypocrisy, saying that if the broadcast industry is so vital to the public square, then it should back it up with more than words.

"Broadcasters like Nexstar, Mission and White Knight claim a unique and special role in delivering news to  Americans,” DirecTV said. “The broadcast industry is, even now, asking Congress to provide it with special regulatory  protections… During the COVID-19 global pandemic in March 2020, Mission and Nexstar returned stations to DISH customers  that had been suspended since Jan. 3 to keep citizens informed as the health crisis unfolded. DirecTV now calls  upon Mission and White Knight to return stations operated by Nexstar through the conclusion of the critical  mid-term election while the parties continue to work privately toward a new agreement.”

A Nexstar spokesman told TV Tech sister brand NextTV not to involve them in the dispute.

"Despite DirecTV’s allegations, Nexstar is not a party to these negotiations and does not control any of these television stations,” Nexstar spokesman Gary Weitman said. ”These stations are owned by Mission Broadcasting, Inc., and White Knight Broadcasting, not Nexstar.” 

BURBANK, Calif. & IRVING, Texas—Nexstar Media Group has come to terms with the CW Television Network on multi-year renewals for CW network affiliations across 37 markets serving 38 million TV households, or 31% of the U.S. TV audience.

Of the 37 markets, Nexstar owns 28 of the stations, while nine are partner-owned TV stations. Among the stations included in these renewals are WPIX-TV in New York City, KTLA-TV in Los Angeles, KDAF-TV in Dallas, KIAH-TV in Houston and WDCW-TV in Washington, D.C.

“We are pleased to extend our valued partnership, through a multi-year agreement, with our largest station group, Nexstar. The linear broadcast model remains the backbone of our business model and vitally important as it gives us the scale and local reach that distinguishes us in today’s marketplace as the original multiplatform network,” said Betty Ellen Berlamino, executive vice president, Distribution, The CW.

“As the nation’s largest CW affiliate group, Nexstar is very pleased to extend its longstanding relationship with the network,” said Tom Carter, Nexstar’s president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer. “The CW’s line-up of prime-time entertainment shows, coupled with Nexstar’s highly-rated local news and other market-centric programming enables us to deliver great content to millions of viewers and exceptional value to our advertisers.”

For more information, visit www.nexstar.tv.  

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. & IRVING, Texas—Dish Network and Nexstar Media Group are pointing the finger at each other in what could be, according to Dish, the largest local station blackout ever over a failure to come to a retransmission agreement.

The blackout, which is on pace to begin on Dec. 2 at 7 p.m. local time, would impact 164 Nexstar TV stations across 120 markets in 42 states and Washington, D.C.

Nexstar says that negotiations have been ongoing since July and that the terms it is offering Dish are the same it offered to other large distribution partners (Nexstar did not name the companies) in 2019 and earlier in 2020. Dish, however, said that Nexstar is using its position as the nation’s largest station owner to “strong-arm companies” into what it says are outrageous rates that would force increases onto customers, a strategy Dish says it used against DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse.

“Nexstar is demanding more than $1 billion in fees for its television channels,” said Brian Neylon, group president, Dish TV. “This shocking increase is the highest we’ve ever seen. Nexstar is intentionally turning its back on its public interest obligation and instead demanding consumers pay significantly more for the channels they could receiver for free over-the-air.” 

In addition, Dish says that Nexstar is requiring that WGN America be carried by Dish as part of the deal, which Dish describes as a “low-rated channel” that Nexstar is trying to have “Dish customers to pay back this investment.”

In Nexstar’s statement, which came out after Dish’s, the station owner said that Dish is four-times the size of Nexstar (in stock market capitalization), “a fact that Dish fails to consider when making less than credible statements about Nexstar.” Nexstar also claims that Dish has a history of “holding its subscribers hostage during negotiations with content providers.”

Nexstar also said: “In Dish’s statement regarding its intention to black out subscribers from their local and network programming and content provided by Nexstar, the satellite provider failed to acknowledge that the expiring agreement with Nexstar was entered into at the end of 2016. Therefore, for the past four years, Dish has reaped the benefit of paying significantly under market retransmission consent fees to Nexstar while consistently instituting rate increases to its subscribers. Dish also disregards the fact that as a result of the advent of reverse comp (programming and content payments made by local broadcasters such as Nexstar to the networks), Nexstar’s network affiliated programming costs continue to increase. Furthermore, Nexstar has made continual ongoing investments for the benefit of its viewers and distribution partners through expanded local news and other programming in its markets, the acquisition of costly life-saving weather equipment and a broad range of other improved services in its local communities.”

Both sides say that they are continuing to strive for a fair deal that will not remove local stations at this time, which is heightened by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In the event that no deal is reached, Nexstar says that it will educate affected customers on how they can access local content.

IRVING, Texas—Nexstar Media Group Inc. promoted Thomas E. Carter to president and chief operating officer, effective Oct. 1. Carter joined Nexstar as chief financial officer in August 2009 and will retain those responsibilities for the foreseeable future. Carter has played a role in the company’s growth with acquisitions, including Tribune Media Co. and Media General.

Perry A. Sook, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Nexstar Media Group, Inc. said in a statement, “Along with our Company’s Board of Directors, I am exceedingly confident that Tom will build on his 11 years of experience and success at Nexstar as he works with me to further grow our business and ensure that Nexstar creates new opportunities and value based on our ranking as the nation’s leading, diversified local media and content company. Our entire team congratulates Tom on this well-deserved promotion, and I look forward to continuing our close collaboration in the years to come.”

Carter added, “The future for Nexstar is very bright and I look forward to collaborating with the rest of the company’s executive team in our ongoing efforts to leverage Nexstar’s position as the nation’s leading local media company to create new value for shareholders.”

Prior to joining Nexstar, Carter served as managing director, Media Telecom Corporate Investment Banking at Banc of America Securities, which he joined in 1985. In that role he served as the senior banker for selected clients across the broadcasting, cable, publishing and media industries, including Nexstar. He began his banking career in 1980, serving for five years in various roles in corporate and international banking at a predecessor to JPMorgan Chase.

PORTLAND, Ore.—ATSC 3.0 is on its way to Portland, Ore., as Meredith Corporation and Nexstar Media Group have announced their plans to launch the city’s first NextGen TV services.

Meredith and Nexstar, along with local TV station owners Sinclair Broadcast Group and Tegna, have filed applications with the FCC for the commercial transition of the Portland market to ATSC 3.0. Pending FCC approval, Meredith’s KPDX-TV (MyNet) and Nexstar’s KRCW-TV (CW) will serve as NextGen TV host stations for the market, enabling network programming from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PBS, CW and MyNetwork to be available via NextGen TV broadcasts. KPDX will host Meredith’s KPTV (Fox) and Tegna’s NBC (KGW), while KRCW will help broadcast signals for Nexstar’s KOIN (CBS) and Sinclair’s KATU (ABC).

Oregon Public Broadcasting also plans to file its application for participating in the ATSC 3.0 transition in the near future. Both KPTV and KRCW will broadcast certain PBS programming.

Broadcasters are expected to collaborate on the launch of the NextGen TV service as well as maintaining existing digital TV over-the-air ATSC 1.0 signals in Portland.

Meredith, Nexstar, Sinclair and Tegna are all members of Pearl TV, a group collaborating on the build out of ATSC 3.0 station launches in the top 40 U.S. television markets. Portland is the 22nd largest U.S. TV market.

“This transition in the Portland market is a significant milestone on the road toward full deployment of NextGen TV,” said Brett Jenkins, executive vice president and CTO of Nexstar Media Group. “This is the next step, beyond experiments and trials, as broadcasters move forward with actual commercial deployments of NextGen TV in 2020. Nexstar is excited to be a part of this cooperative effort. It demonstrates that the entire industry is driving forward with technology that will bring new benefits to our viewers and additional opportunities for growth across the entire television industry.”

The ATSC 3.0 rollout is beginning in earnest in 2020. At the 2019 NAB Show it was announced that new TV transmission technology aimed to be in the top 40 markets by the end of 2020. In addition, TV manufacturers have announced they will begin to rollout TV models with ATSC 3.0 receivers this year.

No timeline was provided for when Portland's NextGen TV stations would go live.

TVT has everything you need to know about ATSC 3.0 in one place.

IRVING, TEXAS & EL SEGUNDO, CA.–Nexstar Media Group and AT&T have ended a two month-blackout, agreeing to return all 97 Nexstar-owned stations to AT&T’s video platforms in a mult-year retransmission consent agreement. Nexstar local stations are now returning to any impacted DirecTV, AT&T TV and U-verse platforms.

“Our customers want more choice and value and we are pleased to deliver that through this new agreement with Nexstar and its many local stations,” said Rob Thun, senior vice president of content and programming, AT&T Communications.

“Nexstar’s long-standing commitment is to provide exceptional programming and service to the local communities we serve across the United States and this new multi-year agreement will allow us to continue delivering our stations’ leading network and sports content as well as local news and other programming to AT&T subscribers in our markets,” stated Keith Hopkins, senior vice president, distribution, Nexstar Media Group, Inc.

Both companies said they “regret the inconvenience incurred by customers, viewers and advertisers, and we thank them for their patience, as the new agreement was being finalized.”

Financial terms were not disclosed.

CINCINNATI—In relation to the Nexstar Media Group and Tribune Media proposed merger, the E.W. Scripps Company has announced that it has acquired eight television stations in seven markets. The new stations include two CBS, two Fox and four CW stations, bringing Scripps total station footprint to 59 in 42 markets, giving the company a 30 percent reach to U.S. TV households.

Scripps acquired seven stations in six markets for $505 million, while also paying $75 million for WPIX, the CW affiliate in New York City. The other stations are KASW, the CW affiliate in Phoenix; WSFL, the CW affiliate in Miami-Fort Lauderdale; KSTU, the Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City; WTKR, the CBS affiliate, and WGNT, the CW affiliate in Norfolk, Va.; WTVR, the CBS affiliate in Richmond, Va.; and WXMI, the Fox affiliate in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Scripps now has nine markets were it operates more than one station. These are also the first stations for Scripps in Virginia and Utah.

The company says that it will finance the transaction with a combination of term loans and unsecured debt. In addition, it is giving Nexstar the option to buy back WPIX from March 31, 2020, through the end of 2021.

The deal is set to close at the same time as the Nexstar-Tribune merger.

“This acquisition represents another step in our plan to improve the depth, reach and durability of our broadcast television station portfolio while adding nicely to the company’s free cash flow operation,” said Adam Symson, president and CEO of Scripps, in the announcement.

RAYMOND, MAINE—Dielectric today announced it has received an order for its 500th antenna for the ongoing FCC-mandated repack of TV spectrum.

KSHV-DT, a Nexstar Media Group-owned station serving Shreveport, La., will install its new TUA-P4-4/10H-1 SM broadband, side-mount auxiliary antenna in Q1 2019, Dielectric said.

The station, part of Phase 2 in the FCC repack schedule, can use the antenna on its existing channel and for its future UHF channel assignment.

“Since reaching our 500th antenna milestone with long-time customer Nexstar, we’ve taken at least 42 more orders for spectrum repack arrays, and we’re shipping about 100 antenna systems per quarter. Business is moving at a fast and furious pace,” said Dielectric Vice President of Sales Jay Martin.

KSHV-DT’s new antenna will transition the station from channel 44 to its new assignment on channel 16 when the antenna array is in place, the company said.

Dielectric designed the antenna to radiate in a unique, directional, peanut-shaped pattern optimized for coverage of Shreveport and Texarkana, Texas and Ark., it added.

Dielectric opened a second, repack-focused production facility in December 2017 to accommodate the influx of repack business.

While the new capacity has helped the company meet the aggressive deadlines of its customers affected by the repack, a shortage of tower crews for antenna installation remains, said Martin.

“There is a serious shortage of qualified crews to work on complex installations on tall towers that will likely cause an installation bottleneck in the field, perhaps even before the end of 2018,” he said.

The Dielectric TFU-WB antenna and Powerlite series side-mounted designs can be installed more quickly, offering broadcasters that run the risk of missing their phase deadline a way to meet the schedule, he added.

More information is available on the Dielectric website.

For all the latest news and insight on the repack, visit our repack silo.

NEW YORK— Nearly 320 TV local TV stations within the past 30 days have signed on with PremiumMedia360 to adopt its Guidance Intelligent Assistant (GIA) Cloud platform to advance the goal of accelerating automated advertising transactions, the company announced this week.

The announcement is seen as a milestone in an ongoing industrywide effort to address fragmentation of transactional data across local TV markets based on the TV Interface Practices (TIP) initiative. Backed by Hearst Television, Nexstar Media Group, Raycom Media, Sinclair Broadcast Group, TEGNA, and Tribune Media, the TIP Initiative is focused on automating ad transactions for local broadcasters and media agencies.

By deploying the PremiumMedia360’s GIA Cloud platform, the stations now are employing the TIP standard to streamline ad transactions and respond to the rapid evolution of linear TV ads.

“The TV industry and their agency counterparts will all benefit from achieving seamless, real-time, two-way and error-free data connectivity,” said John Bowser, CEO, PremiumMedia360. “We believe this is just the first step towards realizing the still untapped potential in broadcast television, a critical ad channel, and we’re hearing from players across the TIP Initiative, that this is exactly the kind of momentum they wanted to see.”

The PremiumMedia360 GIA Cloud platform as an intelligent, open-source transactional data management platform designed specifically for linear TV advertising. Powered by AI, the Software as a Service (SaaS) solution acts as universal translator that integrates with existing software platforms. The platform reformats, automates and synchronizes the data flow between TV stations and ad agencies.

More information is available on the PremiumMedia360 website.

BALTIMORE—Two months ago, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, Univision and American Tower announced they would work together to setup an ATSC 3.0-based single frequency network in the Dallas market. Work is progressing on the SFN, which with a bit of regulatory help from the FCC should be partially lit up before next month’s NAB Show in Las Vegas.

The SFN effort is more than simply a trial of Next-Gen television, however. It is also a test of a proposed ATSC 1-to-ATSC 3.0 transition that relies on spectrum clearing, channel sharing and what may be an unprecedented level of cooperation among competing broadcasters.

Mark Aitken, vice president of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, has been at the center of the rollout of this Next-Gen SFN trial. In this interview, he discusses how work on the single frequency network is progressing and how the trial will provide Sinclair with critical data that will help it achieve its goal of deploying SFNs nationwide to usher in a new era of television.

(The following is an edited transcript.)

TVTechnology:Sinclair, Nexstar and Univision, along with American Tower Corp., announced in January the joint construction and operation of an ATSC 3.0 single frequency network in Dallas. Can you bring me up to date on where the project stands?

Mark Aitken: There are three new SFN sites that will host the Next-Gen service of five local Dallas stations. We refer to this as a multi-channel, multi-tenant SFN—obviously Next-Gen-related.

We are in the process of providing a network infrastructure that ties to all of those facilities so that we have what we refer to as a Next-Gen Broadcast Operations Center. That will be a local presence that also is capable of being run from Baltimore [the home of Sinclair’s headquarters].

On a local level, we have the issue of getting the SFN up and running. First off is the main transmission site with Next-Gen, tying that into multiple SFN sites and all of the work that goes along with that, including timing and determining the proper power overlaps.

Once that is working, we must address how to operate that as a remote site. Eventually, that operation will go back to a regional center because it is envisioned that Dallas is just one of a number of DMAs that get serviced from a regional hub.

[Dallas Getting Single Frequency Network for ATSC 3.0 Deployment]

TVT:What stations will participate?

MA: The target stations—and I say target stations because all of this is subject to FCC approval—are KSTR, a UniMas station; KTSD, an independent owned by Cunningham Broadcasting; KUVN, the Univision affiliate; KDAF, the Tribune Broadcasting CW affiliate; and a fifth station, which I cannot divulge at the moment.

Two of those stations—KSTR and KTXD—will relieve themselves from their ATSC 1 activity and be hosted by the others in a channel-sharing arrangement. This is important: this channel sharing means there will be no channels lost to over-the-air viewers. None of the core channels nor the Diginets will be lost.

All five will also broadcast all of their channels—core and Diginet—as Next-Gen service on the SFN. I think that is a total of 20 channels.

TVT:That setup must put big demands on MPEG-2 encoders for the ATSC 1 side of the operation.

MA: This is a crowded field, and we need capacity for additional channels on the 1.0 stick. What that encompasses is bringing in new software-based encoders that are being optimized for a new and different level of service.

In that regard, we have a vendor with encoders that will do one HD and depending on program content five, six or seven SDs at the same time. Or, they are capable of supporting three HDs at the same time, or supporting a whole host of combinations in between.

TVT:I’ve often heard it said that getting a group of broadcasters to agree to anything is like herding cats. This Dallas arrangement seems to fly in the face of that.

MA: My emphasis in Dallas is on learning how to get along. None of this happens without participation and cooperation.

It’s about keeping that 1.0 piece whole, not impacting the consumer. Not impacting the revenue of stations and making way to fully impact the unleashing of new, future services. Those things equate to keeping the industry alive.

TVT:What is the target launch date?

MA: We are hoping to have part of the system up and running prior to NAB. I say trying to because once you figure out who your partners are for the sharing on the 1.0 side, you’ve got notification requirements and FCC filing requirements for post licensing through the commission.

If you look at what came out of the rulemaking, a secondary license gets issued for the purposes of being allowed to carry your content on another channel [channel sharing to continue 1.0 service]. And that’s further made difficult if you have a PBS non-com in that mix because of the nature of non-com rules. On top of that, the FCC form called out [in the ATSC 3.0 rulemaking that details the 1.0 hosted environment] doesn’t even exist at the moment. So, we’re working very closely with the FCC.

TVT:You’ve mentioned in the past that Sinclair wants to rollout a nationwide network of 3.0 SFNs. Will this SFN trial help you achieve that goal, and if so, how?

MA: What Dallas allows us to do is check off the list, “OK, here’s the equipment, here are the available vendors, here is the project timeline and here is the sequence of events.”

It’s a project in its own right, and it has its own timeline impacted by deliveries and acceptance and commissioning and all of those things. When you are talking about multi-channel, multi-tenant sites for SFNs, you’re building new transmission facilities.

It is really understanding what resources are available, what capitalization is required, what the interrelated services are and how they get sequenced. It is really a soup-to-nuts approach to a somewhat complicated puzzle.

By the way, what’s gone on in front of that is the actual engineering and planning of what is the nature of a properly designed single frequency network.

How do you get the coverages lined up, how do you coordinate coverage in an SFN environment versus interference? It’s all those engineering studies. It’s all those—in our case—the use of Progira software as the planning tool for understanding the nature of what the end result is going to be.

TVT:You’ve had an ongoing SFN trial in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore corridor. What takeaways from that trial will be helpful in Dallas?

MA: What’s helpful is we understand how to synchronize and balance the propagation characteristics in that SFN, the nature of performance we need in the network. We know the nature of the components that go into that. However, we need more than a single market to understand propagation. We do propagation studies. But do they match in the real world what we have synthesized in the environment in a software program?

TVT:How will you be conducting field strength tests and other needed tests in Dallas?

MA: ONE Media will deploy its mobile lab, which is a completely outfitted van that will do every level of testing on the move, not just from fixed sites—so automated data collection on the move in a real mobile environment.

[Putting Next Gen TV to the [Full] Test]

We have to take that data and compare that against the projected data coming out of Progira and ensure that what we think we’ll get is what we’re getting. We started that process in Baltimore, but that’s just one market.

TVT:Why Dallas? Was it the fairly flat terrain?

MA: Look, it would be foolish to start with the most difficult cases and there are plenty of those. Top of mind, you have Seattle, Pittsburgh and lots of other markets. But it wasn’t chosen specifically because it is flat. There were a whole number of considerations.

We’re looking at how we would do a connected, regional service. The plans that we have made in terms of the SFN aren’t just about the Dallas-Ft. Worth market. They extend down a whole corridor and the next in line is Waco.

It also was chosen because of the availability of partners. It was chosen because Dallas is a bit of a high–tech center. It was chosen, by the way, [because] Nexstar’s home office is in Dallas.

It was chosen for a whole number of reasons, but clearly because it is reasonably tame geographically, first things first. The mantra here is crawl, walk, run.

TVT:One theoretical SFN deployment scenario that is often described is ringing the perimeter of a market with several—maybe four—SFN sites with directional antennas pointed inwards toward the big stick. I know you’ve said there will be three SFN sites, but is this the type of approach that will be taken in Dallas?

MA: Actually, it is substantially of that nature. They are not directional antennas, but they have a degree of directionality. They’re cardioids.

If you looked at the plan, you would see there is a fourth site, but it actually overlaps into the Waco market, and that’s best suited to be served by the channel structure in Waco as opposed to Dallas.

So, we know we need that in the lower side of Dallas. We’ve focused on the high population densities—the northern sort of growth patterns of that market—to light that up first.

TVT:What transmitters will be used at the SFN site and what will the ERP be?

MA: We will be using 5kW Comark solid state transmitters. The ERP will be 100kW.

TVT:Is there a target average signal strength you are trying to achieve for the market?

MA: The target signal strength is 60µv/square meter at 1.5 meters off the ground, or the typical distance off the ground a person would be holding a portable device. That’s based on a 95 percent probability service factor.

TVT:What are your plans for synchronizing the transmitters on the network?

MA: It is a matter of going out in the field, looking at the impulse response of merged transmission systems. We’ll be flexing some of the tools like TxID [ATSC 3.0’s transmitter identification signal] that allow us to identify the nature of the multiple signals being received.

We know on a map where the mating point is, if you will, of converging emissions from towers. We will go out in the field and set those up. And we’ve got GPS lock and distribution of common timing across the network. It’s actually a pretty easy process.

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TVT:If the GPS satellite signal were lost, is there a backup?

MA: The GPS assumes we have a running Rubidium-based clock synced. That way, you can lose satellite coverage and still have a stable clock.

It really is the case that GPS is bigger than a single SFN. You need a stable clock source that ties all of these entities together. But there are multiple ways of doing that and we will be testing other methods as well.

All the other industries that surround us do this on a day-in-day-out basis, whether it’s LTE Broadcast, DVB-T2, DTMB, go down the alphabet soup list. That’s not the difficult piece of the equation.

TVT:What about STLs? Microwave or fiber?

MA: While we have fiber to all sites, we are purposely dropping microwave into the middle of that to dissuade any concerns people may have about a mixed environment.

TVT:How important is sharing to the success of your SFN strategy?

MA: It is really important, because it is a cost share. It is also about efficiency of resource use.

The fact of the matter is I want to build an SFN and you want to build an SFN. Well, does it really make sense to deploy two different tower crews and do it sequentially? So, there are cost savings and resource savings and I would say that in the planning of that there is a level of redundancy and resiliency that gets built in by the nature of the quality of service desired.

TVT:You said ONE Media will be in the market with a specially built van taking measurements. Are there other plans for reception besides the engineering side of things—perhaps seeding the market with ATSC 3.0 receivers?

MA: Absolutely. We’ve got a number of parallel paths underway to bring to market the devices that are going to ultimately support the business. So, gateway type devices. We’ve got activities underway with a couple of proposals. A couple of the participants are actually building prototype receivers and prototype gateway devices.

We are in the process of lining up the type of launch services, but a lot of that is in the hands of Spectrum Co and John Hane [newly named president of Spectrum Co].

TVT:How much will this SFN deployment cost —or is that proprietary information?

MA: We will make public the cost when we tally it up. There won’t be any secrets here. What I will say is it is running substantially below the budget we projected. That budget was in line with projections many people have made over the last couple of years with respect to the cost of building out shared SFN sites.

TVT:Dallas is the model. But each market where you ultimately will deploy SFNs will be different. The big sticks in one case might be co-located on an antenna farm and in others they will be spread out throughout the market. So how much can you walk away with from this SFN trial that will be applicable to other markets as you deploy a nationwide network?

MA: I think the framework is 100 percent applicable. The variables inside that framework may be different. Is it three, four, five or a half dozen transmitters? That changes it. The nature of the work that has to be done on site is another variable. Is the existing tower fine, or does it need to be reinforced?

But we know these variables because all of these variables are in play in Dallas. While the specifics won’t be exactly the same, we are defining a framework of decisions that will have to be made. So, we will have a well-defined decision engine that we hope will help us deploy in virtually any market.

TVT:Is there anything else?

MA: I think the industry wishes us success and we wish great success to others in the industry that are doing their own Next-Gen implementations.

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

SARASOTA, FLA.—The Local Media Consortium (LMC) is pulling up another chair to its alliance of media companies as Nexstar Media Group has announced its membership. The LMC is a strategic partnership of 1,700 print, broadcast and online local media companies, including 171 full power TV stations in 100 markets across the country.

“At Nexstar Media Group we are committed to localism innovation and growth. Our goal is to maximize every opportunity to become the local consumer's and advertiser's number one choice across all screens. Through our LMC membership, we will have the valuable opportunity to collaborate with other leading local media and technology companies, while further extending the reach and accessibility of Nexstar's content and services," said Tom O'Brien, Nexstar Media Group's Executive Vice President, Digital and Chief Revenue Officer.

As a new member, Nexstar will be able to receive technology and content solutions from other LMC members, including the likes of Google, Yahoo and Monster.