PORTLAND, Ore.—The Portland Fire WNBA team has launched Portland Fire+, the team’s official streaming platform priced at $5.99 a month.

Built in partnership with direct-to-consumer streaming technology provider Kiswe, the platform offers live programming, original content, and exclusive behind-the-scenes access. The Fire’s live game streaming broadcasts will be presented by Chime.

“Portland Fire+ will serve as a central destination for fans to experience the team in new ways, featuring live streams of key team moments, original episodic series, player features, and exclusive content not available anywhere else,” said Fire senior vice president of marketing and communications, Kimberly Veale. “The platform expands the Fire experience beyond the arena, offering year-round access to the people, preparation, and stories that define the organization.”

Powered by Kiswe, Portland Fire+ provides a scalable digital platform built to support live streaming, premium content distribution, and enhanced fan engagement.

“Kiswe is proud to partner with the Portland Fire on the launch of their direct-to-consumer streaming platform, Fire+, in support of their inaugural WNBA season,” said Glenn Booth, CEO of Kiswe. “We’re looking forward to the opportunity to connect the Fire directly to their new fanbase, while also helping to increase access to the growing demand for women’s sports.”

Portland Fire+ subscriptions are available through both monthly and annual plans. Pricing will begin at $5.99 per month or $59.99 annually, with limited-time early access offers available ahead of the 2026 season.

For more information on Portland Fire’s 2026 debut season and the streaming service is available at theportlandfire.com.

PORTLAND, Ore.—The WNBA’s Portland Fire and NWSL’s Portland Thorns announced a multi-year media rights deal establishing Gray Media’s KPDX (Fox 12 Plus) as the regional broadcast home for the two professional women’s sports teams in Portland.

Additionally, the Portland Fire WNBA expansion team announced that they have signed a deal with Kiswe to offer a direct-to-consumer service that will give fan access to live games, original programming, and in-depth team storytelling on a newly-branded Portland Fire streaming platform.

“The partnerships with Gray and Kiswe represent an important step in continuing to cement Portland as the global epicenter of women’s sports,” said Michael Whitehead, sports marketing director at RAJ Sports, which owns the two teams. “These partnerships are designed to put fans and accessibility first and will set a new standard for how women’s sports can be enjoyed.”

“Our goal is to ensure all fans have the opportunity to view free over-the-air games and support our local professional athletes,” added Gray Local Media regional vice president and general manager, Corey Hanson. “Fox 12 Plus is honored to provide the space to highlight women’s sports, giving them the visibility they’ve earned and inspiring the next generation of athletes.”

Fox 12 Plus will serve as the exclusive local broadcast home of the Portland Fire, with all available games airing on Fox 12 Plus and select games simulcast on Fox 12 (KPTV).

Game broadcasts will be produced in partnership with Raycom Sports, a subsidiary of Gray Media.

The Portland Thorns will continue their local broadcast presence on Fox 12 Plus with expanded match clearance, shared weekly storytelling segments, and inclusion across original women’s sports programming.

In addition to linear broadcast coverage, the Portland Fire will debut a branded direct-to-consumer streaming platform built and operated in partnership with Kiswe featuring interactive live game streaming, exclusive bonus content, and innovative fan experiences built to bring all Fire fans together.

“At Kiswe, we believe that fans want more than just a place to watch a game, they’re looking for community,” said Kiswe CEO Glenn Booth. “Our partnership with the Portland Fire is about far more than powering another streaming service. It is about building a dedicated digital destination where the team and its fans can connect. By combining interactive livestreaming with exclusive content and engaging fan experiences, we are creating a community-centric platform that reflects the passion of Portland and ensures every Fire fan is part of the action, no matter where they are.”

The new partnership also includes original studio programming focused on both teams, community initiatives, and athlete storytelling, including coverage highlighting the upcoming Kaiser Permanente Performance Center – a first-of-its-kind, dual-purpose professional soccer and basketball complex from RAJ Sports designed around the needs of women athletes. Content will be distributed across broadcast, digital, and connected TV platforms, including a dedicated Fox 12 CTV experience.

“This landmark partnership underscores a shared commitment by RAJ Sports, Gray Media, Raycom Sports, and Kiswe to build an innovative multiplatform media model that expands access and celebrates women’s sports,” said president & CEO of LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media, Inc., Lee H. Berke, who advised RAJ Sports on these transactions.

PORTLAND, Ore.—Locast continues to expand its reach across the country, announcing that it will begin serving the Portland, Ore., market on March 19. The free, over-the-internet streaming service will offer 39 local TV channels to Portland’s 3 million residents.

Locast streams local TV stations over the internet to phones, tablets, laptops or streaming devices so that even those that have cut the cord can have access to local news, storm coverage, emergency information, COVID updates, sports and entertainment programming. The launch date in Portland coincides with the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, which airs games on CBS affiliates.

As a nonprofit, Locast operates under the Copyright Act of 1976 to rebroadcast local stations without a copyright license, which has been a point of contention for broadcast networks.

Portland stations that will be available through Locast include KGW NBC 8, KPTV Fox 12, KATU ABC 2, KOIN CBS 6, PBS and PBS Kids, Telemundo, Univision, CourtTV, MeTV, The CW, HSN, ION and more, totaling 39 in the market.

Locast will be available in 27 counties in the Portland DMA, including Baker, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Crook, Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Hood River, Jefferson, Lincoln, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Sherman, Tillamook, Union, Washington, Wheeler and Yamhill. The DMA also includes Washington state counties Clark, Klickitat, Skamania and Wahkiakum.

Portland is the 31st market to have the Locast streaming service, making it available to half of the U.S. population, the company says. More than 2.5 million users are registered.

For more information, visit www.locast.org.  

PORTLAND, Ore.—The NextGen TV standard is set to undergo a test on its ability to transmit the ATSC 3.0-powered standard over limited cable infrastructure in Portland, Ore., the Phoenix Model Market has announced.

The Phoenix Model Market Partners are working with Comcast in Portland to see how to deliver NextGen TV to Comcast’s infrastructure, which Phoenix Model Market believes could provide the industry a real-world technical example of how to transmit ATSC 3.0 over hybrid fiber-coaxial infrastructure.

The collaboration between the Phoenix Model Market and Comcast will develop the technical capability to pass along NextGen TV 4K UHD content through cable and eventually other features like HDR, Wide Color Gamut and ATSC 3.0 advanced immersive audio capabilities, per the Phoenix Model Market.

“While the Phoenix Model Market continues to expand its testing capability, we will be working together with industry leader Comcast to test out compatibility between both current cable and future broadcast architecture in the Portland market,” said Anne Schelle, managing director of Pearl TV, which manages the Phoenix Model Market. “We want to ensure that our viewers over cable can enjoy the enhanced video and audio experience that NextGen TV plans to offer.”

Comcast’s Senior Director of Digital Technology and Standards Jerry Parkins says that the test will provide insights into the performance of the technology for broadcast partners, manufacturers and technical groups.

Portland stations began transmitting the NextGen TV standard earlier this year.

PORTLAND, Ore.—ATSC 3.0, the next-generation television standard, has planted its flag in Portland, as seven local TV stations have begun broadcasting NextGen TV.

The Portland stations that are broadcasting ATSC 3.0 are the Meredith-owned KPTV (Fox) and KPDX (MyNet), Nextsar’s KOIN (CBS) and KRCW-TV (CW), Sinclair Broadcast Group’s KATU (ABC), Tegna’s KGW (NBC) and KOPB-TV (PBS). With the new technology, these stations will be able to support new developments like immersive audio and video, advanced emergency alerts with rich media, broadcasting to mobile devices and personalized viewing tools.

All participating stations are cooperating to ensure that current programming remains available to all viewers. For antenna viewers, they can rescan their TV sets to ensure full service. Cable and satellite subscribers do not need to take any action.

BitPath, a wireless network provider, led the planning process and coordinated efforts across the TV stations. The company said the Portland launch is its largest ATSC 3.0 deployment to date.

PLUS: ATSC 3.0: Deployments: Where and When Will NextGen TV be Available?

“The future of television in Portland begins today, as the launch of NextGen TV opens the door for innovations that offer a more enriching experience for viewers across platforms,” said Kurt Rao, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Tegna.

“This deployment of NextGen TV in a key top-25 market not only continues the momentum we have built over the last several weeks with the roll-out of this advanced technology in markets such as Las Vegas, Nashville and Salt Lake City, it further enhances the value of Nexstar’s spectrum by enabling us to deliver the highest-quality viewing experience in tandem with internet-based information and hyper-targeted advertising,” said Brett Jenkins, executive vice president and CTO for Nexstar. “The day is rapidly approaching when we will be able to provide the full suite of benefits of NextGen TV to all of the communities served by Nexstar television stations across the country.”

The rollout of NextGen TV began in earnest in 2020, with the goal of reaching the top 40 markets by the end of the year. However, the ATSC organization does acknowledge that there could be some impact from COVID-19 on the deployment of the standard. 

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.

PORTLAND, ORE.—Audinate has some new digs in both Australia and the U.S., as the company has announced that it has completed renovations to both its North America headquarters in Portland, Ore., and its Australian headquarters in Sydney. The projects were an effort to support the continued adoption of the Dante audio networking technology, according to Audinate’s press release.

Audinate's new Portland office

Audinate’s Portland headquarters has moved into a new building, now located in the Albers Mill Building. The new space is triple the size of Audinate’s previous office and now includes Audiante’s new North American training center. In Australia, the expansion of the Sydney headquarters and Innovation Center doubled the size.

With the new expansion, Audinate says that it is likely to boost its staff, with an emphasis on adding software and hardware engineers in Sydney, and training and marketing resources in Portland.