NEW YORK—Innovid, a software platform for the creation, delivery, measurement and optimization of connected TV (CTV), linear and digital advertising, said LG Ad Solutions has joined its Harmony initiative.

Earlier this year, Innovid launched Harmony to bring together industry players to improve efficiency and return on investment, enhance transparency and control, reduce carbon emissions and provide better viewing experiences for consumers across CTV and digital.

As part of the initiative, Innovid’s Harmony Direct is designed to offer a streamlined workflow for guaranteed, nonbiddable CTV media and to remove friction points, including additional technology hops, fees and energy waste.

LG Ad Solutions joins Assembly, CMI Media Group, Goodway Group, PMG, Roku, and Vizio as partners using Harmony Direct.

“Since we launched Harmony in April, the industry-wide support for it has been inspiring,” Innovid founder and CEO Zvika Netter said. “Advertising leaders across the buy- and sell-sides know that to create a CTV ecosystem that benefits all—and, most importantly, the viewer—the time to act is now. I’ve never felt more optimistic about the future of advertising.”

Innovid also reported that PMG, an early agency adopter, is now rolling out Harmony Direct across its portfolio of clients. After leveraging it for local campaigns for multiple quick-service restaurants and a national restaurant chain, PMG found that it yielded major efficiencies with programmatic buys, including an increase in working media dollars.

Harmony Direct launch partners saw an average 8% increase in working media for agency partners, Innovid said. Publisher partners improved yield by up to 15%, which included average fill rates increasing from 90% to 100%. In 2024, across the total U.S. CTV market, this could represent more than $1 billion in immediate savings going back into the ecosystem.

“For our clients, we are always looking for the most direct path to a publisher—and removing unnecessary friction points is a win-win for both the buy and sell sides,” PMG Video and CTV Strategy Lead Mike Treon said. “Programmatic guaranteed deals are riddled with wasted spend and lost impressions. We leaned into working with Innovid’s Harmony Direct because, as an industry, we have to remove inefficiencies to realize the true power of CTV as an advertising channel. Results from our initial campaigns made expanding our use of Harmony Direct across our client base a natural next step.”

Released in July, the initiative’s Harmony Frequency, is the first holistic frequency management solution for CTV and digital advertising. Currently in closed beta, the solution provides demand-side platforms with frequency intelligence across a brand’s entire media portfolio before they bid—reducing ad waste, strengthening campaign effectiveness and improving the viewing experience.

BOULDER, Colo.—Public Media Group (PMG) has formed an alliance with American Tower to accelerate deployment of turnkey Single Frequency Networks (SFNs) to support commercial and noncommercial broadcasters as they roll out ATSC 3.0 services. 

The companies will work together building out the SFNs. PMG will own, operate and manage the SFN infrastructure with the goal of enabling broadcasters to maximize NextGen TV revenue, deliver quality content and enhanced data services to consumers, PMG said.

The shared infrastructure SFN deployment model offers broadcasters economic benefits, including increased signal density and coverage and capacity improvements for their networks. Installation is more cost effective with shared infrastructure, and it can reduce ongoing operations and maintenance costs, PMG said.

PLUS: American Tower Completes Construction Of Dallas ATSC 3.0 SFN

“PMG is committed to designing and operating infrastructure that maximizes opportunities for all broadcasters, and through our alliance with American Tower, we will be better positioned to rapidly deliver the promise of ATSC 3.0 and Single Frequency Networks to communities across the country,” said PMG CEO Joe Chinnici. 

PMG will evaluate all relevant towers when deploying an SFN for a DMA-based or statewide network. The alliance will afford PMG greater access to American Tower’s best positioned tower sites for improved coverage and speed to market in large, mid-size and rural networks.

“We look forward to working with PMG to utilize our 40,000-plus tower sites for potential SFN deployments nationwide,” said Steve Vondran, President of U.S. Tower, a division of American Tower Corporation.

“With our experience working on commercial SFN deployments and test trials, our knowledge complements PMG’s mission to fully manage and operate the underlying infrastructure, so broadcasters have confidence in enhancing their signal coverage and capacity improvements to better reach their audience.”

American Tower will work with PMG to provide site development services, including network RF design support, program management, zoning, permitting and complete RF installation and construction services. American Tower will also engage its national operations and maintenance organization and leverage its national Backup Power program to harden the network on American Tower sites.

More information is available on the PMG website.

The Public Media Group (PMG) announced this week it had taken over WGBH’s ownership interest in Public Media Management (PMM), a cloud-based master control and content sharing platform.

The move, executed in late April, sets up PMM as a company jointly owned by PMG and Sony, which worked with WGBH to establish the platform in 2015.

Stacey Decker, former CTO of the Boston public broadcaster, moved to PMM to be its president and CTO of the Public Media Group. 

The corporate mission of Public Media Group is to enhance television broadcasting through deployment of ATSC 3.0 single frequency networks. Its new interest in PMM positions Public Media Group to not only provide SFN infrastructure as a service but also to drive content through the cloud-based PMM master control and playout platform to individual SFN sites, enabling over-the-air TV to geo-target viewers.

In this interview with Decker, the PMM president, discusses where the platform stands today, how it is being enhanced with machine learning and analytics and the way in which—together with PMG’s SFN-as-a-service offering—PMM will enable broadcasters to leverage ATSC 3.0 to unlock new revenue streams and remain competitive. 

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology: The Public Media Group works with public and commercial broadcasters to assist them in evolving to ATSC 3.0. How will its acquisition of WGBH’s interest in the Public Media Management cloud-based master control and content sharing platform further that goal?

Stacey Decker: I had intentions of working toward offering services associated with ATSC 3.0 from within the platform from the beginning.

Among the tools we think are going to be incredibly important, especially for commercial broadcasters, is for targeted advertising. 

The elements I have started to bring into the whiteboard sessions we have been having to roadmap the PMM business are associated with analytics and machine learning. 

We are looking at machine learning and analytics so our technology can make more informed decisions. But how do you incorporate what the user is doing so that the machines make decisions that accommodate the needs of the viewer and react fast to people’s needs?

The days of single source analytics are gone. You have to incorporate the analytics of digital platforms, social media platforms and broadcast platforms together so this system can make intelligent decisions.

TVT: How would that work?

SD: Imagine an environment in which 3.0 mobile delivery becomes a social experience that draws on social media. An environment in which you register your profile with a group, like a broadcast network, and that network knows based on your profile that you are interested in certain types of news elements.

I can now incorporate content delivery into buckets—obviously not targeted right to an individual, but to a smaller group that shares common interests.

It’s the closest opportunity we have to be more social and targeted, and I think broadcasters need a shot like this. It’s really important for broadcasters to take the leap and invest in ATSC 3.0 because there are so many opportunities there.

PLUS: Newly Formed Public Media Group Plans Nationwide ATSC 3.0 SFN Rollout

TVT: Someone once told me it would be impossible for 3.0 to enable personalization of content and advertising with a baseband infrastructure behind it. This could only happen with the help of the cloud. That observation seems consistent with what you are telling me about your plans for PMM, which is cloud based.

SD: The cloud changes everything. If you incorporate 3.0 into a cloud infrastructure in a smart way, all of a sudden you have a pretty powerful tool.

TVT: ATSC 3.0 supports both over-the-air and streaming delivery of content. How does PMM address this?

SD: The one thing I have taken very seriously—and this is more associated with public broadcasting but definitely resonates with commercial broadcasters—is that I have assisted broadcasters in becoming more efficient with their media management platforms.

I feel it is my duty to assist broadcasters in doing one-touch delivery to broadcast, digital platforms, digital publishing and social media so we can manage all media going to those locations from one location and at the same time deliver the analytics needed to understand how successful those pieces have been.

TVT: Some broadcasters looking at 3.0 are considering scenarios in which they can leverage SHVC (Scalable High Efficiency Video Coding) to reduce the number of bits sent over the air and supplement them in the home with bits sent via the internet. 

Those OTT bits would be combined with the OTA signal in the receiver to, for instance, enable 4K UHD viewing in the home while giving broadcasters a way to deliver a more robust 3.0 OTA signal to mobile devices. Can PMM manage where bits go in this type of scenario?

SD: Yes. You’ve actually hit the nail on the head. When I talk about the analytics and machine learning piece, having that intelligence built into the process of media delivery—specifically the encoding environment—to make the encoder dynamic so it can with incredibly intelligent metadata determine what the thresholds of what the broadcast spectrum are with relations to content.

Here’s another scenario where bandwidth devoted to specific content might change depending on its value. Maybe it’s 8 o’clock or 10 o’clock at night and a non-high-value content product is being delivered via broadcast. You can determine its value based on analytics and squeeze bandwidth a little bit, and dedicate that extra bandwidth to delivery of other data.

TVT: So what will a television station that’s your client look like? Does on-premise master control and playout go away?

SD: Right now, PMM drops a stack of technology at the facility that automates about 99% of what a station does, but it gives them a terminal to work from.

If they want to put it in auto-pilot, they can and then go home at night. If they want to put it in manual control, they can sit down and grab the stick and away they go. PMM is built like that today. 

Just recently one of our clients decided to move facilities, so we have been working on a cloud model with a partner for about the past 18 months.

The intent is to remove that hardware stack and virtualize the entire experience. You know, we are built with Sony. Sony owns Crispin automation. We are going to be one of the first cloud-native designed and built products. 

TVT: That’s quite a change from how most broadcasters work today.

SD: What I am suggesting is that broadcasters become media companies. That’s it. They’ll have a terminal or multiple terminals to work from. That terminal will give them the ability to ingest live content and file-based content into a cloud environment. 

The beauty of the cloud is there won’t be one seat of automation. There will be an infinite number of seats in one automation system.

For the last seven weeks, all of the operators using PMM have been working from home. So we’re managing 18 TV stations—together serving many entire states—for the past seven weeks because of COVID-19.

TVT: Some broadcasters have consolidated master control and production control used for newscasts to find greater efficiencies. Are there any plans for PMM to drive newscasts?

SD: It’s interesting. COVID has really pushed the envelope with regard to technical capabilities. One of our PMM clients happens to be the public broadcasting station in San Diego.

They act almost like a commercial news network. They do a nightly news program. It’s really interesting how they’re relying on PMM to help them with the process with people working from home.

We didn’t predict COVID by any means, but I am proud to say that the technology we’ve assembled has responded to the new hurdles that have been put in front of broadcasters. Absolutely with the cloud technology, I think using the virtualized stack that we are building, you could do away with production control.

TVT: Let’s shift gears a bit. Before Public Media Group acquired WGBH’s interest in PMM, it was a big proponent of ATSC 3.0 single frequency networks (SFNs), right?

SD: Yes. The initial interest of PMG was ATSC 3.0 SFNs. We are a public benefit corporation. We have a mission. That mission is to enhance the broadcast industry through SFNs.

TVT: So was the plan to set up SFN sites for broadcasters and sell broadcasters an SFN-as-a-service package?

SD: That’s exactly it. We’ve gone out and raised a substantial amount of money. There’s been a big effort made with private equity firms to raise some capital to invest in infrastructure as a service.

We feel like there are a lot of broadcast licensees out there and having them work together technically really opens up a lot of opportunities for broadcasters long term.

TVT: I’ve heard 3.0 SFN advocates say competing broadcasters in a market should cooperate when it comes to individual SFN sites, for instance sharing the expense of the real estate for sites. Are broadcasters ready to work together on that level?

SD: I really think it’s time for broadcasters to think about continuing to compete in front of the lens, but behind the lens, they need to collaborate—whether public or private—to become a big juggernaut in regard to technology and capability.

It’s interesting to see the more progressive organizations. They see the opportunity in 3.0, and they see the leverage it gives them with regard to their business model.

Others are probably just waiting and seeing. I would encourage them to get onboard because I think it is really a good opportunity for stations.

I was a skeptic in the beginning about 3.0, and I’ve transitioned my thought process significantly because of what I see in markets. We see an SFN in San Francisco increasing the POP count by 40%. That’s a huge number for a broadcast station. POP count is a big deal.

TVT: Have you heard from any broadcasters that they are interested in using the LDM feature of ATSC 3.0 to offer hyperlocal content over the air in their markets?

SD: We are big believers in LDM. We’ve hired a gentleman, Eric Dausman, who was the chief engineer and CTO at Sutro Tower in San Francisco. He is a very sophisticated RF engineer, and he believes heavily in LDM. It’s something that’s been done in Korea. 

We think that the geo-zoning capability LDM enables so that broadcasters can offer hyperlocal content is a secret sauce with regard to ATSC 3.0. We see about 10Mbits of additional bandwidth that can be used for that type of experience.

TVT: Is the plan to enable hyperlocal, geo-zoned playback with the scheduling, playout and master control functionality of PMM by making sure the right content gets to the right SFN site in markets?

SD: Yes. You know for PMM to be intelligent, we need access to data. I am having conversations with a number of data platforms to make us more intelligent. 

The more intelligent we get and the more access we get to these analytics, the better I can make PMM make decisions on behalf of stations to make them more profitable. So data is a big piece of this.

We also see the edge datacenter deployment in the broadcast environment becoming more realistic and a bigger component in becoming more intelligent closer to the audience. The more intelligent you can be closer to the audience, the faster and more intelligent I can make the digital infrastructure to make decisions to create the hyperlocal experiences you mentioned.

More information is available on the Public Media Group website. 

WASHINGTON—For the past several years, the ATSC’s annual meeting has provided a forum for broadcasters and broadcast-aligned entities alike to make offers they hope will advance deployment of Next Gen TV.

A few years ago, it was Mark Aitken of the Sinclair Broadcast Group and ONE Media, offering 1 million ATSC 3.0 receiver chips at no charge to cell phone manufacturers and other wireless device makers that promised to build them into their commercial products.

At this year’s gathering, which wrapped up Thursday, May 30, Public Media Group (PMG) announced its plan to transform the television industry with ATSC 3.0. Working with public and commercial TV broadcasters alike, PMG plans to roll out a nationwide network of 3.0 single frequency networks (SFNs) for reliable wireless delivery of data and mobile TV.

PMG, a partnership with the Public Media Venture Group’s public TV stations and Osborn Engineering, will design, engineer and build SFN sites for its client broadcasters, which in turn will lease that infrastructure from PMG on a long-term basis.

Besides building the SFN network, PMG will build datacenters and create software platforms in support of the deployment. There are even plans for renewable energy to power the SFN network. At its June launch, PMG will begin with its 31 public broadcasting entities, which represent nearly 120 stations that reach about 250 million Americans.

PMG’s management includes Erik Langner, former president of Public Media Company; Eric Dausman, former CTO of Osborn Infrastructure and COO of Sutro Tower, as SVP, RF Technology; and Joe Chinnici, former president and COO of BioStar Infrastructure, as CEO.

In this interview, Chinnici discusses PMG’s plans, its offering to broadcasters, its willingness to collaborate with a diverse set of clients and the opportunity SFNs transmitting data and television with 3.0 offers broadcasters.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology:What is your offer and how will it impact the decisions of broadcasters as they weigh their alternatives for 3.0 rollout?

Joe Chinnici: There are four questions I get asked, really almost every single time, whether it’s a public sector client or a commercial client in regards to why us, why 3.0 as well as SFNs—let alone next-gen broadcast and datacenters.

Those four questions are: No. 1, do we have the engineering capabilities to develop a nationwide, market-neutral single frequency network platform?

The answer is yes. We’ve got sufficient RF engineering and technology capabilities to lead the industry, whether it is public or private [broadcasting]. One of our founding members is Osborn Engineering. They’ve been a market leader in RF engineering for several years.

No. 2, do we have the financial resources to pay for this? It is a pretty significant pro forma as you start to layer on multiple layers of infrastructure assets, and we have a very significant global equity infrastructure fund that is supporting us to the tune of several billion dollars.

We have two global financial institutions for project level as well as lease financing capability. So, we're well-capitalized to support our plan, so we can take that contingency off the table for our clients.

No. 3, arguably one of the more prominent questions is can we assist our clients with new revenue opportunities? Clearly that's top of mind for everybody as they consider entering into operating and lease expenses with us in return for us building out that infrastructure.

We're happy to say that we've made several introductions between non-traditional users of spectrum that would like to potentially sublease and utilize some of that data [capacity] with our broadcast clients. We don't get in the middle of that; it's not our job to do that. But it is our job to support our clients when they're considering evaluating and proceeding with new revenue opportunities.

And then fourth, are we neutral? I mentioned in the engineering comment we approach each market from an agnostic basis, and we design to the optimal deployment for all of our clients, whether they're public or private. We have no bias.

We don't have existing infrastructure assets that we try and position in that solution to the potential detriment of our clients. But more importantly, are we Switzerland between the clients?

TVT:It looks like you're proposing a competitive alternative to what Spectrum Co. has been working on. Is that correct?

JC: I think that's a fair statement. However, I'd reposition it this way. We're approaching the market on a fully collaborative basis with a neutral party to bring different clients within each segment together.

I applaud, certainly, other participants in the industry trying to advance 3.0 adoption, but they're doing it through a more limited or narrow approach.

Again, we approach it completely the opposite way. We engage all the market participants, whether it be a city DMA or a state-wide DMA and invite them into our process. That’s No. 1.

No. 2 is we have a full infrastructure development plan. Phase one is around ATSC 3.0 upgrades, as well as the single frequency network development. Phase two, next generation broadcast datacenter development. And then phase three, once we understand the critical load needs of phase one and phase two, we'll develop and deploy renewable energy. So we have a full lifecycle value proposal to our clients that has been well received.

Third, we're taking the financing off the table. Again subject to market lease, of course, and investment committee and underwriting, we remove that contingency. And then we also engage in new business opportunities.

TVT:Broadcasters are going to need to collaborate on channel sharing to get from ATSC 1.0 to 3.0. Are you going to be involved in that part of the process?

JC: Absolutely. We’ve started at ground zero, or even minus zero. So, by the end of this month we will have at least mapped out support for all of our initial 31 broadcast partner markets.

And those range from the largest—New York, Chicago, San Francisco—to the smallest—one is 80 miles outside Nashville—to statewide networks. It's not quite roughly a third, a third and a third, but you know, directionally, that's fair enough for this conversation. So we'll have that fully mapped out, and that represents 118 different stations.

That’s on the public side. We are doing that because that community represents a significant, albeit a minority, shareholder in our company. So we have an anchor client from a capital market’s perspective.

At the same time, we’ve engaged with seven different commercial clients, and they range from the networks to the group station owners in the markets where they overlap with the community I just mentioned, as well as some markets that are outside of that—although those are few and far between.

So, yes, we have been conducting and rolling out on a progressive basis. So by the end of June, we will have our initial core clients mapped out. We even have had channel swapping conversations going on.

TVT:What does having public broadcasters as minority shareholders bring to PMG?

JC: To be candid, I wish I could tell you that I came up with all of this, but I did not. We are extremely fortunate to have those 31 PBS stations as members in the minority ownership of our company.

There is a tremendous amount of goodwill there. When the hurricanes hit Houston within the past couple of years, virtually all of the commercial stations where knocked off the air. But the one that remained was the PBS station.

Overnight, they offered to and did host all of those other commercial stations, including one they hosted for about 18 months. This was done through generosity and goodwill in the industry.

So, there is this huge reservoir of political capital, if that’s what you want to call it, that we are able to leverage. So we’ve had a tremendous level of support as well from the commercial side.

TVT:So, the plan is to leverage the advantages SFNs bring, such as a higher, more consistent signal level throughout a market to deliver mobile or wireless data, and to roll this out nationwide, right?

JC: That is absolutely correct. Our ultimate plan is a nationwide rollout, and that will take us five, 10 or 15 years. What we have now is a starting point with that anchor set of clients on the public side—at least 118 different stations that reach 240 million to 250 million eyeballs already. So we already have a very large client segment to support. Creating a nationwide platform is going to take time, but ultimately that is our goal.

TVT:What is the deal you are offering broadcasters? You are going to pay for the capital expense of the SFN network deployments in exchange for what? Time on the network? A certain number of bits—a percentage of data throughput? Or something else?

JC: At the end of the day, it is a very pedestrian story. We receive a lease payment from our clients for access to this infrastructure we are building for phase one, phase two and phase three. It’s pretty simple.

With respect to getting involved with the spectrum or the data capacity and potential new revenue opportunities, we are certainly active and exploring new revenue opportunities for our clients.

But we do not participate in that. We do not manage their spectrum. We can certainly advise, introduce and even assist in executing a bilateral agreement between non-traditional users of that spectrum and the holders of that. But that’s not our business model.

However, related to that, we absolutely are involved in discussions around new revenue opportunities.

TVT:In announcing your plans this week, you identified the automotive and agricultural industries as possible clients for broadcasters with new PMG-built SFNs offering 3.0 service. Do you have real clients for broadcasters that you can bring to the table who want to use these SFNs to deliver data?

JC: The short answer is yes. We have a couple of other segments to fall in line with that. In no particular order, we have significant reverse inquiry around the educational aspects of this. It could be distance learning; it could be workforce retraining—in markets or even areas adjacent to metropolitan areas that can benefit from the connectivity and some entity providing that information flow.

We are seeing a significant amount of interest in the emergency management space from statewide networks to more localized. The wildfires in California, for example. The one thing everybody heard was that Verizon and AT&T powered down certain communications portals, and when you are in the emergency management business you can’t do that.

So we are in extremely active conversations involving new revenue opportunities in those spaces. And then technology clients, absolutely. And on the agricultural side the same.

TVT:Related to possible commercial broadcast clients, you mentioned PMG is engaged with seven networks and broadcast groups. Do those include member of the Pearl TV coalition?

JC: We are currently getting through our legal documentation, so we won’t be able to release the names until the end of June.

We would love to collaborate with Pearl. We don’t want to give the impression that we are competitive. We would be more than happy to collaborate with Anne Schelle and her team at Pearl as well as other industry participants.

TVT:Is there any reason why this has to be a competitive offering versus Spectrum Co.? In other words, why wouldn’t collaboration be possible?

JC: There is no reason. You are absolutely correct. Again we feel we bring a different approach—a broader approach and a more inclusive approach to this. The firm that you just mentioned, there are some competitive issues that are challenging. However we are able to bridge that divide.

We have been specifically asked by their executive management team to consider collaborating. I’ve said unequivocally, I am open to that. 

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.