Nebraska public broadcasters are among the first in the nation to launch a free “virtual” channel over NextGen TV and the former CTO of Nebraska Public Media was at the ATSC NextGen Broadcast meeting in Washington D.C. last week to demonstrate its capabilities.

As part of its extensive capabilities, the ATSC 3.0 advanced television standard—now available to approximately 76% of U.S. TV households—allows broadcasters to launch so-called “virtual” channels. Like traditional main channels, they are transmitted over the air, using the NextGen broadcast data channel capacity of a host broadcaster, sending data directly to a viewer’s smart TV. Viewers with NextGen TVs can view and select the channel in their programming guide and access the channel seamlessly over the internet.

In Nebraska Public Media’s case, the broadcaster teamed up with Sinclair to launch its "Broadcast-Enabled Streaming TV" (BEST) Channel in Omaha last fall. Nebraska Public Media’s PBS and local programming is hosted on KPTM, Sinclair’s Fox affiliate in Omaha, and delivered in high dynamic range (SL-HDR1)

Ling Ling Sun—who as former CTO for Nebraska Public Media, led a team that launched the channel and is now vice president of technology for Maryland Public TV—explained the premise of the launch.

“We have many loyal viewers, and they watch our shows on different platforms,” she said. “We wanted to provide one portal to our viewers, so from this screen, they can watch linear broadcasting or video on-demand. And we also integrated our radio streams into it. Viewers can also scan the QR code [on-screen] to donate. And we incorporated some community outreach programs. It’s basically a service to inform, educate and entertain our viewers.”

In addition to local programs such as the long-running “Backyard Farmer,” the virtual channel also includes weather alerts as well as live and on-demand coverage of the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature. In other words, basically most programming and live services available on the network’s traditional TV and radio channels can be made available on its BEST channel.

When NextGen TV was launched in Omaha in 2022, the four major networks began broadcasting from host station KXVO, which serves as the lighthouse station for the area. However, PBS was not part of the launch and in the fall of 2024, the network launched its virtual channel on KPTM, Sinclair’s Fox affiliate in Omaha, the result of an agreement between Sinclair and America’s Public TV Stations (APTS) in which the broadcast station group agreed to provide carriage of APTS member stations for free in markets where Sinclair had deployed NextGen TV and a public television station had not.

The technology enabling the virtual channel resides in the RUN3TV platform, which brings two-interactivity to broadcast television. The platform’s architecture enables TV stations to develop, innovate and differentiate at the application services layer, making possible consistent viewer experiences across all NextGen TV devices, according to Pearl TV, which launched it in 2022.

“I wanted to deploy this on RUN3TV because I think this is a great example where we can combine OTA and OTT together,” Sun said. “One portal, one unified access so people can watch over the air and also easily jump to OTT.”

To develop the interface, Sun reached out to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for help from a senior student design team. The network sponsored the initiative that involved six students working on the project which resulted in the team receiving a Platinum Award from the University, according to Sun.

Other markets that have launched virtual channels under the SInclair-APTS initiative include Nashville and Reno, Nev.

COCKEYSVILLE, MD.—Sinclair and its subsidiary, ONE Media Technologies, hosted another in a continuing series of ATSC 3.0 device interoperability trials this week.

This time, the testing centered on DRM (digital rights management) and signal signing, dynamic ad insertion, the ATSC 3.0 Physical Layer, dynamic service changes, interactive services, enhanced audio and video services, failover recovery, and performance of a “BEST” (Broadcast-Enabled Streaming Television) channel feature whereby an over-the-air signaled channel is delivered via a broadband connection.

According to Mark Aitken, president of ONE Media Technologies and Sinclair’s senior vice president of advanced technology, the June 3-7 “interop,” or “plugfest” was the seventh such event to be hosted by ONE Media, and the second in-person trialing of NextGenTV technology since 2020.

More than two dozen equipment manufacturers and broadcast groups participated in the trialing, which took place in the ONE Media lab facility at Sinclair’s headquarters located in this Baltimore suburb. More than 100 separate tests were scheduled to be conducted during the four-and-a-half-day event.

Trials involved air chain (encoder, packager, gateway and exciter) technology providers, as well as 3.0 receiver and emergency alerting equipment manufacturers. ONE Media and Sinclair, in addition to providing the facility, also distributed Baltimore area ATSC 3.0 off-air signals to participants’ workstations to create a real-world testing environment.

What's Being Trialed This Time
Along with continued testing of ATSC 3.0’s MMT (MPEG media transport) and DRM (digital rights management) components, this year’s sessions also addressed signal modulation changes, with the latter being especially important as new NextGen TV services such as datacasting, DAI (dynamic ad insertion) and BPS (broadcast positioning service) are rolled out.

As explained by the event’s coordinator, and ONE Media senior systems engineer, Jason Kim, with 3.0, the signal modulation component is not fixed as was the case in earlier DTV implementations and standards.

“With ATSC 3.0 you can make your signal robust, but you’re not going to have as much bandwidth and throughput,” he said. “[Alternatively], you can change things to increase bandwidth to deliver as much data as possible, but the signal is not going to be as robust. There’s a tradeoff.”

“We’re trying to find a sweet spot where we can continue our linear video services and also provide robust mobile data delivery. Since the ATSC 3.0 physical layer modulation is flexible, we can optimize this,” he added.

Kim stated that testing of 3.0 physical layer configurations in preparation for datacasting would be part of the interop schedule.

“This is important, not just for Sinclair, but for others as well,” he said. “We are testing different configurations end-to-end in the delivery chain. Our number one priority is to ensure that there is no service disruption to television viewers. We want to find a modulation ‘sweet spot’ where this is possible.”

Kim observed too that while DRM testing had been part of previous interop events, it figured heavily into this year’s schedule as well.

“We want to make sure that there is interoperability with all of the existing receivers out there,” he said.

Aitken amplified Kim’s remarks.

“You’ve had early issues in connection with DRM that have stuck in the minds of some,” said Aitken, recalling that there had been mixed opinions about the technology developed to ensure that a network’s high-quality content wasn’t accessible by those who would want to use it for monetary gain.

“The battle cry has been that DRM gets in the way,” said Aitken. “At this event, we’re seeing that the different permutations of DRM are working quite well. This is a testimony to everyone involved, and also serves to raise a hand in the crowd and say ‘wait a minute — there’s a lot being said about little to nothing.’ Here’s the proof [a consensus on DRM]. Here’s the industry coming together.”

A Quicker Way of Rolling out NextGen TV
Kim observed that the “failover recovery” element of the interop testing was being performed in connection with a technology that’s being developed to allow broadcasters to very quickly deploy ATSC 3.0 services.

“This is an air chain that’s set up in the cloud,” said Kim. “It’s a totally virtual air chain. ONE Media and Sinclair demonstrated this air-chain-in-the-cloud concept at the NAB Show this year. We’re using the same air chain in our tests this week. This is the first time that a cloud air chain has been used at an interop.”

He elaborated that the “failover” component of the testing was especially important for when cloud-based 3.0 is implemented on a large scale.

“We’re testing failover between cloud and on-premises air chain implementations to see how fast these changes can be made,” said Kim. We need to [establish] the best way to do this so the viewer doesn’t notice. We need to see how receivers react and if this changeover can be done seamlessly.”

Interop Timing
Aitken noted that this year’s interop event had been scheduled to occur close to the June 12-13 ATSC NextGen Broadcast Conference and associated meetings.

“We thought that a lot of folks would be in town for either the interop or the ATSC annual conference; maybe for one or the other, and for many, both,” said Aitken. “If it didn’t make sense to come for one thing, it makes sense to come for two things. This event [the interop] is all the more timely because of the push within the FCC to sunset ATSC 1.0.

“I expect that within the next few years we’ll have the ATSC 3.0 national rollout well underway. Washington is sort of a strange place these days, so nobody is taking bets on exactly what’s going to happen and when something’s going to happen, but I can tell you that’s something’s going to happen.”

Advantages of In-Person Testing
While noting that ATSC 3.0-related interops of plugfests had continued virtually during the pandemic, both Aitken and Kim acknowledged that there was no substitute for the in-person testing and evaluation that was taking place at this year’s event.

“At an in-person event, we all see the same thing and work together to troubleshoot any problems,” said Kim. “This happens a lot faster when you’re doing things in person. You get more things done in person. It’s very different from a virtual environment.”

“If you get the right people together at the same time in the same place, and deal with the same issues, many of these issues are easy to resolve,” said Aitken. “We saw that last time, especially in connection with signal signing. One party had it right and three had it wrong. What they had differently was quickly worked out.

“We’ve got encoding, packaging, scheduling, modulation, along with the demodulation and display — the entire chain all in one place,” he observed. “It’s rare that you have in the same room multiple representatives from every piece of the broadcast chain.

The interop event attracted some 55 participants traveling from a variety of countries with a presence or interest in NextGen TV development. Organizations represented included ADTH, Airwavz, Alticast, Anywave, Ateme, DigiCAP, DS Broadcast, DTV Innovations, EiTV, Enensys, Gray Media, Harmonic, Hisense, Heartland Video Systems (HVS), iWedia, Koherence, Maru Eng, News-Press & Gazette (NPG), Pearl TV, Rhode & Schwarz, Samsung, Sinclair/ONE Media, Sony, Synamedia, TCL, Triveni Digital, Velope, and Zixi.

AI has gained a lot of traction in the media & entertainment Industry with a new application seeming to appear every day.

For instance, AI-assisted compression and statmuxing are helping broadcasters make more efficient use of their spectrum. It is also identifying faces, objects and the written word in video frames to enrich metadata with payoffs ranging from more relevant news creation to increased revenue from content licensing fees.

AI is also making it easier to build replay lists for sports productions, create interpolated video frames for synthetic slow motion; auto-mix audio; unearth relevant content and make video shorts based on what’s found for social media distribution; make content recommendations to streaming service subscribers based on their preferences and thereby reduce churn; match ad inventory to content on a contextual basis; and optimize content delivery network traffic (CDN). The list goes on and on.

One GenAI application in particular recently caught my attention. Sinclair, working with generative AI language editing company Deeptune, ran a trial of real-time English-to-Spanish translation of newscasts from four of its stations for distribution via their YouTube channels.

Rafi Mamalian, vice president of the Sinclair Innovation Lab, told me during an interview the station group’s initial intent was to ensure it could reach and warn more people during severe weather events like hurricanes in South Florida.

“Then it dawned on us. There are probably a lot of underserved audiences in a lot of our markets where we could potentially turn on the live broadcast and see if we could expand our audience,” he said.

My ears immediately perked up because I have written in this space before about this sort of thing. Broadcasters will have the opportunity to serve local viewers better, expand their audience and generate more ad revenue thanks to a future marriage of AI language translation and NextGen TV.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are some 68 million people in the United States who speak a language other than English in their homes. While Spanish-language speakers by far outnumber speakers of other foreign languages in the United States, the number of Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic speakers is significant. For instance, the bureau puts the number of Chinese speakers at nearly 3.5 million.

According to the bureau, about a third of those Chinese-speaking households are designated as “limited English-speaking,” meaning a household where no one over the age of 14 speaks only English or English very well.

In a 3.0 future with support for personalized audio and multiple channels, why wouldn’t a broadcaster in San Francisco, for example, simulcast an AI-generated Chinese-language audio translation of its English-language newscasts?

From where I sit, deploying AI foreign language translation and marrying it up with local newscasts transmitted as 3.0 signals will be a win for viewers, a win for broadcasters and, thanks to helping more people be better informed, a win for society at large.

DENVER—At the 2025 NAB Show, April 6-9, in Las Vegas, Imagine Communications is introducing OSI-X, the latest iteration of the company's widely deployed OSI Traffic and Billing system. Built on a modern technology stack with a fully browser-based UI and cloud-native architecture, OSI-X delivers a streamlined, intuitive user experience designed to meet the needs of North American broadcasters navigating Total TV convergence.

The advancements provided in the OSI-X platform have led Sinclair Broadcast Group to adopt OSI-X as their consolidated platform for traffic and billing across their entire over-the-air footprint.

"We are excited to announce Sinclair's decision to migrate all OTA television stations onto the OSI-X Traffic and Billing system," said Rob Weisbord, COO and president of Local Media at Sinclair. "This transition is driven by enhancements to security with single sign-on, browser-based access to OSI Traffic and Imagine Communications' full support of the TV Interface Practices standards set forth by the broadcaster consortium. These advancements will streamline our operations and further secure our broadcasting infrastructure."

OSI Traffic and Billing is one of the core platforms in Imagine's portfolio, and the company has made continual investment to address evolving business models — enabling the many media organizations that rely on the industry-proven platform to adapt to the changing way people watch TV and maximize profit across all inventory types. With increasingly complex ad operations and mounting pressure for broadcasters to do more with less, OSI-X provides a path forward. Whether deployed in a private data center or in the cloud, the platform offers a highly secure environment and supports a wide range of linear, streaming, and CTV workflows.

JW Linkenauger, SVP of AdTech at Sinclair Broadcast Group, commented, "Imagine Communications is a proven partner that continually invests in enhancement of their OSI-X television platform. Their strong support of TIP and ongoing technological advancements show their deep understanding of the complex ad delivery ecosystem."

The new OSI-X release builds on its proven predecessor with a redesigned user interface, SAML-compliant single sign-on, and support for cloud or on-prem deployment, giving broadcasters the flexibility to modernize in their own way and at their own pace. With OSI-X, users get the robust functionality they have come to rely on in a secure, scalable, and more accessible environment.

Integrating readily with third-party tools and standards-based platforms, OSI-X provides the core inventory management, traffic, reconciliation, and posting functions required to operate with TVB- and TIP-compliant order management systems, as well as numerous third-party CRM, ERP, and general ledger applications.

"OSI-X reflects Imagine's commitment to simplifying broadcasters' ad sales and management operations across linear and digital workflows," said Imagine Communications CEO Steve Reynolds. "As the industry continues to evolve, we're giving broadcasters the tools to operate more efficiently, reduce cost and complexity, and prepare for whatever comes next."

At the 2025 NAB Show, OSI-X will be demonstrated in the Imagine Communications suite at the Encore hotel (April 6-8, Schubert Room). Show attendees can also learn more about OSI-X at Imagine's West Hall location, Booth W2067.

Fifteen years ago this month, U.S. broadcasters “cut the cord” on NTSC, shutting down analog TV and putting the finishing touches on a transition to digital that lasted more than a decade. 

Viewer response was fairly muted, but that’s because broadcasters, regulators and consumer electronics companies rightly anticipated an outcry if too many viewers lost access to a free over-the-air signal. Navigating the deadline to shut down analog was a frustrating process as all parties involved attempted to assemble the variety of moving parts that made up the transition.

In the summer of 2024, the industry is looking at the next shutdown—the end of ATSC 1.0. Despite the arduous task that faced broadcasters in the 2000s during the first transition, this next transition could be even harder to achieve.

Comparing the two transitions is apples to oranges. The first transition was mainly based on regulatory guidelines that in essence, forced industries to cooperate toward a common goal. The cable, broadcast and consumer electronics industries were also facing a far less complex media ecosystem where there was less competition for eyeballs. And perhaps the biggest factor was the decrease in prices for large screen 16:9 flat screens that aligned with broadcasters’ move to HDTV, a very noticeable and welcome advance for home viewers.

What Do You Get With NextGen TV?
The transition to ATSC 3.0 (aka NextGen TV) is touted as “market-driven” with a lighter regulatory touch than the move to 1.0. There are no specific deadlines for stations to deploy the standard nor are there any mandates to provide tuners in any receiving devices. There aren’t any mandates for broadcasters to provide anything more than simulcasting ATSC 1.0. 

And, in contrast to the first transition, broadcasters face a much more complex media landscape and Silicon Valley competitors with far deeper pockets and much less to lose if a particular experimental service failed (remember Quibi?). It’s also harder to get viewers who are now used to getting their programs in 4K and HDR to get excited about 4K HDR broadcasts. 

Mark Aitken, senior vice president of advanced technology for Sinclair Broadcast Group would beg to differ on that front. 

“HDR is very significant, and one of the promises of the ATSC 3.0 standard is better television for America’s living rooms,” Aitken said at this year’s NAB Show. “It was the focus of the ATSC at this year’s CES. CBS’s delivery of the February Super Bowl LVIII in HDR should spur others to add this enhancement to their ATSC 3.0 transmissions and I expect to see announcements from other networks,” said Aitken, who added that some 40 Sinclair stations are on the air with Advanced HDR by Technicolor. 

Aitken’s sentiments are echoed by Anne Schelle, managing director of Pearl TV, the consortium of broadcasters and manufacturers promoting NextGen TV, who discussed how local Louisville, Ky. TV stations promoted HDR, 4K and Atmos immersive audio in their local 3.0 broadcasts during the week leading up to the 2024 Kentucky Derby. Local stations partnered with a local retailer to give away NextGen TV sets and promotions on their websites attracted “a significant increase in traffic.”

“I think that is a good indicator of the interest in HDR,” she said. Schelle also noted Pearl’s recent announcement that several large station groups, including Gray Television, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst Television, Tegna and The E.W. Scripps Co. will accelerate funding of the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority (A3FA), the driving force behind the RUN3TV platform. Pearl TV says it expects additional broadcast groups to become involved in the future.

“RUN3TV is  built by broadcasters for broadcasters and it allows companies who built on the platform to easily build applications and try out unique features and have them be able to work across the multitudes of operating systems that are currently out there and more to come,” she said.

A new partnership with ROXi to launch interactive music channels, as well as NBC’s announcement that affiliates in top markets are launching ancillary services via NextGen TV were among the other 3.0 highlights announced at the NAB Show in April. 

Beyond consumer applications, broadcasters are also using a portion of their spectrum to deploy new datacasting services. Also at the NAB Show, Sinclair launched its “Broadspan” datacast service in partnership with Edgio. The new service will enable data distribution in all the current markets where Sinclair stations are offering ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley invited other station groups to join the service. 

Bandwidth Constraints
While all of these new capabilities are brought to us via the ingenious capability of ATSC 3.0’s combination of broadcast with IP, there’s only so much bandwidth available and that bandwidth is further constrained by the 1.0 simulcasting requirement.

At presstime, ATSC 3.0 has been launched by more than 91 stations in 40 markets, bringing the advanced broadcast standard to within reach of more than 75% of U.S. households. Pearl TV says it expects that number to grow to more than 200 stations in 53 markets by the end of 2024.

Most of those stations are simulcasting 3.0 with 1.0 over “lighthouse” transmission partnerships in which one local station offers up its transmission facilities to “host” the other 3.0 stations in particular markets. This requirement is in place during the transition to ATSC 3.0. Originally, the FCC imposed a 2025 deadline to end 1.0 simulcasting but in 2023, moved the date to July 17, 2027. The decision was in part predicated by the industry’s exhortations to the commission earlier in the year about a “stalled” transition.  

In response, FCC Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel announced the formation of the “Future of TV” task force at the 2023 NAB Show, inviting all industry players to work together towards a successful conclusion of the transition to 3.0. 

“This Future of Television initiative will gather industry, government, and public interest stakeholders to establish a roadmap for a transition to ATSC 3.0 that serves the public interest” Rosenworcel said at the time. “A successful transition will provide for an orderly shift from ATSC 1.0 to ATSC 3.0 and will allow broadcasters to innovate while protecting consumers, especially those most vulnerable.”    

‘Frank’ and ‘Candid’
The FCC asked the NAB to take the lead by hosting the meetings, and while the industry has been tight-lipped about characterizing the tone, the best the press has been able to get out of sources is that they are “frank” and “candid,” which, in Inside the Beltway-speak, can have a wide variety of meanings. 

But given the cable industry’s long-held viewpoint that certain guardrails must be in place before it replaces 1.0 with 3.0 and the consumer electronics industry’s vehement opposition to any Congressional tuner mandates, it’s understandable that the task force may not arrive at a definitive deadline that will please everyone.

The NAB, for its part, is staying on message. “The Future of TV initiative has made great progress, and we are looking forward to releasing the report later this year,” they told TV Tech. “We appreciate the participation of everyone involved in this effort to help ensure a smooth transition.”

ATSC President Madeleine Noland agrees that ending the transition is top of mind for broadcasters, noting that until a deadline is established, broadcasters are finding ways to add more capabilities despite the bandwidth constraints. 

“As exciting as datacasting is, until the transition is farther along—and I don’t mean getting from 75% to 100%—but I mean within a given market, it’s important to have more transmitters available with 3.0. I think about the Boston market and we have one transmitter up, which is carrying five or six high-definition signals and at least two standard-definition search services. There’s not a lot of room to do anything else.”

Noland mentioned the recent addition of five more 3.0 stations in the San Antonio market as one of the ways around such constraints. “I gotta tip my hat to San Antonio for being able to get that second stick up.“ Noland said, adding that the current focus will not be in trying to finish the other 25%, but in expanding coverage in existing markets. “Let’s try to get depth in the markets that we already have because we’ve got all the big markets; let’s build it out and be able to do more with 3.0 in those markets.”

Consumer Devices
According to the CTA,  the cumulative U.S. installed base of NextGen TV receivers topped 10.3 million in 2023 and consumer sales of NextGen TV products are expected to increase by 45% in 2024. ATSC says more than 100 consumer products that support NextGen TV are expected to be available by the end of 2024, with the vast majority being TV sets from Sony, Hisense, TCL and Samsung. LG, which announced a suspension of the manufacturing of NextGen TV sets in 2023 due to a patent dispute, currently sits on the sidelines.   

Unlike the transition from analog to digital when the federal government subsidized the purchase of low-cost digital tuners for consumers who have yet to go digital, NextGen TV’s market-based approach provides no such incentives. 

One person, however, believes that a pure market driven approach is unrealistic and notes that public-private partnerships between industry and the government have an historic precedent that should also play a part in the transition to NextGen TV. 

John Lawson, executive director of AWARN, a consortium of business and government entities promoting advanced emergency alerting technologies on 3.0, thinks  low-cost converter boxes subsidized by the federal government would help accelerate the move to sunset 1.0. 

In an op-ed on TV Newscheck in March, Lawson wrote: 

“Congress would establish a new voucher program for 3.0 set-top boxes and dongles. This time, however, the subsidy program would be established in the name of public safety, for both resilient alerting in the face of climate change and national security to provide a back-up for GPS. Broadcasters would agree to carry Advanced Emergency Information, perhaps with sunset provisions for EAS, and receivers would be enabled to display AEI messages.”

Lawson said he arrived at his position after a meeting with the FCC as well as with broadcasters in Michigan.

“Senior staff at the FCC told me that the broadcast industry had made it clear from the beginning in their opinion that the 3.0 transition was unlike the transition from analog to digital, and that it would be a purely market driven approach,” he said. “And then I went out on the road so to speak to the Michigan Broadcast Engineering Conference I really got a dose of reality,” adding that nobody raised their hand when he asked attendees if the 3.0 transition was “on the right track.”

Lawson adds that his proposal follows a traditional path and promotes, “in effect, a partnership between government and industry.”

“American capitalism is dependent upon R&D and other investments by the federal government and it allows companies like Apple and Meta and many others to make a lot of money. [But] there's a general healthy weariness among the broadcast industry about getting government involved but there are many, many examples of where the two actually support each other.”

Will it Survive as a Purely Market-Driven Transition?
The transition to ATSC 3.0 contains an insane number of moving parts as well as a variety of approaches and while no one is suggesting Congressional mandates of any kind, in its current state, there remains some question as to whether it will survive its status as a completely market-based transition.  

But don’t tell that to Rob Folliard, senior vice president of government relations and distribution with Gray TV and chairman of Pearl TV who says the transition to 3.0 is moving at a faster pace than the move to 1.0. 

“[The transition] has worked better than the government-mandated transition 20 years ago, we are moving ahead faster,” Folliard said. “And I think the reason the market-based approaches work is because the broadcasters see a huge opportunity, a huge ROI, and we’re making it work. We’re finding creative ways to cooperate, channel share, in order to make the transition happen.”

WASHINGTON—Even though the proposed Sinclair-Tribune deal was eventually abandoned, the FCC’s Media Bureau has issued a letter of inquiry to David Gibber, senior vice president and general counsel of Sinclair Broadcast Group, explaining that the commission has opened an investigation into Sinclair on whether it misrepresented or provided a lack of candor about who would be controlling a group of stations that would have been spun off as part of the Tribune deal.

The initial deal fell through after the FCC set a hearing on it in front of the commission’s Administrative Law Judge on these accusations of misrepresentation. The hearing was cancelled as a result, but the ALJ Jane Harpin said the allegation warranted a closer look, which the Media Bureau is no supplying.

The investigation will look into “whether, in light of the issues presented in the HDO [Hearing Designation Order], Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. (Sinclair or Company) was the real party-in-interest to the associated WGN-TV, KDAF and KIAGH applications, and, if so, whether Sinclair engaged in misrepresentation and/or lack of candor in its applications with the Commission,” the LOI reads.

The FCC is now ordering that Sinclair deliver the deal-related documents to the Media Bureau by July 9. The LOI stresses that failure to “respond accurately and completely” can result in a fine or imprisonment.

Other issues raised in the original HDO were dismissed as “moot.”

Speaking on the proposed Sinclair-Tribune deal last year, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said: “Based on a thorough review of the record, I have serious concerns about the Sinclair-Tribune transaction. The evidence we’ve received suggests that certain stations divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law.”

WASHINGTON—On Tuesday, June 18, AT&T filed a “bad faith” complaint with the FCC against nine TV station owners that have pulled 20 stations in 17 cities across AT&T’s DirecTV, DirecTV Now and/or U-Verse; the stations went black on May 30 and June 10. AT&T says that all the stations have shared service agreements with Sinclair Broadcast Group, which it writes in the filing appears to “manage and control” the stations; however, Sinclair was not targeted in the complaint.

The nine station groups included in the complaint are Deerfield Media, GoCom Media of Illinois, Howard Stirk Holdings, Mercury Broadcast Group, MPS Media, Nashville License Holdings, Robert Media, Second Generation of Iowa and Waitt Broadcasting.

Several of the stations affected have said that their retrans deals expired on March 31, though they continued to include their channels on the AT&T services through extensions, with Howard Stirk Holdings and Robert Media saying they offered an unconditional extension earlier this month but were rejected by DirecTV. AT&T says, however, that the nine stations have ignored individual proposals and have been refusing to negotiate “for months.”

That claim that the broadcasters are refusing to negotiate is critical in determining whether the stations are operating in bad faith. Broadcasters, while under no obligation to make deals to have their stations on MVPD services, are required by the FCC and Congress, through the STELAR Act, to negotiate in good faith.

Congress is currently considering the reauthorization of the STELAR Act, which the American Television Alliance says will end the FCC’s authority to enforce the “good faith” rules in regard to retransmission consent.

“This is another symptom of a broken system that’s fueling the blackout crisis and causing retrans fees to skyrocket,” said ATVA spokesman Trent Duffy to AT&T’s stand-off with the stations group. “Congress should not only re-authorize STELAR to maintain the FCC’s authority to enforce ‘good faith’ rules, but also modernize retransmission consent rules, which currently favor broadcasters at the expense of consumers and competition.”

In its filing, AT&T said that the stations “went dark,” refusing to respond after their contracts expired. It also claims that the impasses are not over specific issues, but are instead a part of a strategic delay.

AT&T is hoping that the FCC finds that each station has not negotiated in good faith, force them to the table, require forfeitures and anything else the commission deems appropriate. 

UPDATE: This story's headline was updated to reflect that Sinclair manages and controls, but does not own, these stations.

PITTSBURGH—ACA Connects isn’t a fan of the recently announced deal that would see Sinclair Broadcast Group acquire 21 regional sports networks from Disney-Fox. It’s opposition centers around the same reason it opposed the eventually scrapped deal between Sinclair and Tribune—the possibility that Sinclair would raise prices to consumers, including those served by ACA Connects.

“Big 4 broadcast network programming and RSN programming are both critical for ACA Connects members,” said ACA Connects President and CEO Matthew Polka in a statement. “By jointly negotiating these assets when they serve the same market, Sinclair can raise prices to cable operators for both offerings.”

The deal with Disney would see Sinclair take over 21 RSNs and Fox College Sports, including the rights to 14 MLB teams, 16 NBA teams and 12 NHL teams.

The deal does not contain any licenses, so is not subject to review by the FCC, but it will be looked at by the Department of Justice for any antitrust issues. Sinclair already owns Marquee Sports Network, the Tennis Channel, Stadium, Ring of Honor Wrestling and some high school sports programming.

News as a result of the announced deal caused Sinclair’s stock to go up more than 30% on Monday, May 6.

Ultimately, Polka believes that antitrust regulators will reject the proposed deal between Sinclair and Disney.

LAS VEGAS—Sinclair Executive Chairman of the Board David Smith called ATSC 3.0 the “single biggest opportunity ever available to the broadcast industry” at a Monday press event.

Also present at the press conference was ONE Media President Mark Aitken, who presented plaques to representatives from DigiCap, Ateme and Enensys for helping Sinclair roll out ATSC 3.0. ONE Media is a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Smith mentioned Bill Gates’ prediction that the internet was the beginning of the end for broadcasting.

“It wasn’t the beginning of the end. … This show is really the end of the beginning. [ATSC] 3.0 really is ready for deployment, and it’s time for this industry to get out of its own way,” said Smith.

Smith added that the industry needs to coalesce market by market to get the build-out done and said the kinds of data possible with 3.0 will keep broadcasters afloat for the next generation. While some digital outlets are selling consumer data, broadcasters have, until quite recently, been encumbered in their data efforts by handwritten Nielsen diaries, he noted. Smith said broadcasters’ advertising challenges were based on the inability to deliver modern data to advertisers.

Also, Smith said when public safety personnel and politicians hear what is possible for enhancing emergency alerts and safety aspects of 3.0, they want the technology.

Smith concluded, “The future success of our industry depends on our ability to deliver 3.0 to every device in the marketplace. … Getting access to the consumer is the sole determinant of industry success.”

BALTIMORE—Amit Mathur has joined Sinclair Broadcast Group as vice president of product engineering, where he will continue scaling the station group’s digital publishing as well as expanding its suite of digital products and services, Sinclair said this week.

“I am thrilled to join Sinclair and have an opportunity to develop and enhance audience experiences that take advantage of the company’s expansive local news and content operations,” said Mathur.

Mathur, who will report to Kevin Cotlove, VP and GM of Sinclair Digital Operations, most recently was head of engineering of the player and developer experience team at Electronic Arts. There he led engineering, product management, program management and quality assurance for the company’s Digital Gaming Platform.

Before EA, Mathur held various positions at mobile social platform Tango, was an early member of the Microsoft Azure incubation team and worked to develop AI and machine learning techniques at Symantec. Mathur earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign College of Engineering.

“Amit brings a strong background of leadership and software engineering excellence, and his expertise in building large-scale consumer products will help position Sinclair for continued digital audience growth,” said Cotlove.

More information is available on the Sinclair website.

BALTIMORE & CHICAGO—Sinclair Broadcast Group and the Chicago Cubs today announced they have formed Marquee Sports Network, a joint venture that owns and operates the regional sports network.

Based in Chicago, Marquee Sports Network will be the exclusive network for fans to watch live Chicago Cubs games beginning with the 2020 Major League Baseball season.

Exclusive Cubs content and other local sports programming will also be available from the regional sports network. The Cubs simultaneously entered into a long- term rights agreement with Marquee.

“It is hard to imagine any content that is more unique and valuable than the live sports entertainment the Cubs have been delivering to their fans for more than a century,” said Chris Ripley, Sinclair president and CEO. “Sinclair’s strength in production, distribution and local sales will support bringing more content to more viewers, all while leveraging the latest technology.”

The new agreement will allow the Cubs to give fans an enhanced experience, said Crane Kenney, president of business operations for the Cubs.

“Our dedicated ‘Cubs-centric’ network will carry all available Cubs games and feature uncompromising, in-depth and behind-the-scenes coverage,” he said.

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.

NEW BERN, N.C. –Hurricane Florence may have flooded the studios of WCTI, the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned ABC affiliate in New Bern, N.C., and knocked local power out, but that didn’t keep the station from restoring service to its viewers within a day and a half.

“We were forced to evacuate at WCTI at 8 o’clock on that Thursday night [Sept. 13],” recalls Sinclair SVP of News Scott Livingston. “Then we switched into our Myrtle Beach feed…. Then we went dark due to the storm.”

However, before the station went dark, viewers were advised to continue tracking the storm on the WCTI website and social media pages. Traffic to the destinations spiked when the station went off air, says Livingston.

Broadcasters throughout the Carolinas, eastern Georgia and Virginia began preparing a week or more before what was once a Category 4 hurricane made landfall. For Sinclair, preparations included prepositioning satellite trucks at the transmitter sites of its stations threatened by Hurricane Florence.

In the case of WCTI, Sinclair dispatched a satellite truck from WPEC, its CBS affiliate in West Palm Beach, Fla., along with a satellite truck operator, operations personnel and a group news director, to the station’s transmitter site –a precautionary step to restore television if the studio was affected, he says.

By time the intensity of the storm had subsided in New Bern and power was restored on Sept. 15, the WPEC crew was making final preparations to resume over-the-air coverage to New Bern viewers with the help of Sinclair’s Hurricane Florence mothership at WJLA in Washington, D.C., its digital desk and sister stations around the region, says Livingston.

“The [the crew from WPEC] made it out to the truck around 10:30 [a.m.] on Saturday morning,” he says. “They put the dish up, and we were transmitting around 11:45 [a.m.] and then went wall-to-wall till 6 o’clock.”

As WJLA was wrapping up 30 hours of continuous coverage of the storm, which the station streamed and made available as a backup to Sinclair stations affected by the storm, it began producing coverage for viewers in New Bern. That special feed was beamed from D.C. to the WPEC satellite truck in New Bern and broadcast by WCTI.

“We had a triple box,” says Livingston. “The big box had reports from the field crews of WCIV [contributed via SNG feeds to D.C. from two other Sinclair satellite trucks]. We had radar in another of the boxes, and in the third box live pictures from sister stations and other sources because on Saturday the storm was still impacting South Carolina.”

While Livingston describes the triple box as “fairly simple television,” he says the important thing was that WCTI “was where it was happening—at the intersection of news, literally.”

WJLA remotely produced New Bern newscasts all day on Saturday, Sept. 15, as well WCTI’s evening newscast the next day, its morning show on Sept. 17 and newscasts throughout the week.

Since late last week, WCTI’s newsroom has begun operating out of a trailer Sinclair sent to the station, says Livingston. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, the station’s newsroom took up temporary residence at a local community college.

Hurricane Florence flooded WCTI’s studios with six to eight inches of water, requiring carpet to be ripped out, and sheet rock and damaged equipment to be replaced.

While the station sustained damage, there was no loss of life or injury to station personnel, a silver lining for which everyone involved with Sinclair is grateful, he says.

Although it’s never desirable to get hit directly by a storm like Hurricane Florence, the event gave the station’s news department and Sinclair the opportunity to prove its mettle.

“It was certainly a defining moment for the station and a defining moment for our news organization to be able to pull off what we did,” says Livingston. “I couldn’t be prouder.

BALTIMORE--Sinclair Broadcast Group on Tuesday answered Tribune’s lawsuit over their failed merger with a countersuit.

Sinclair agreed to acquire Tribune for $3.9 billion, but the deal fell through earlier this month after the Dept. of Justice and the FCC expressed objections.

Each company canceled the deal and Tribune sued Sinclair seeking damages of at least $1 billion and claimed that Sinclair did not move appropriately to achieve government consent.

[Read: Tribune Files Lawsuit Against Sinclair, Effectively Ending Merger]

"We were extremely disappointed that the Tribune transaction was terminated," said Chris Ripley, Sinclair's president & chief executive officer.

"We are likewise disappointed that Tribune, through its meritless lawsuit, is seeking to capitalize on an unfavorable and unexpected reaction from the Federal Communications Commission to capture a windfall for Tribune,” Ripley added. “Today, we filed our response to Tribune's complaint, along with a counterclaim against Tribune for breaching the merger agreement. As described in our filing, we fully complied with our obligations under the merger agreement and worked tirelessly to close the transaction. The Company looks forward to vigorously defending against Tribune's claims and pursuing our own claim."

Tribune responded with a statement of its own.

“Sinclair’s counterclaim to Tribune’s complaint is entirely meritless and simply an attempt to distract from its own significant legal exposure resulting from its persistent violations of Tribune’s contractual right,” Tribune said.

“As detailed in Tribune’s complaint, Sinclair repeatedly and willfully breached its contractual obligations during what should have been a straightforward regulatory review process," Tribune added. "Sinclair’s misconduct culminated in its submitting to the Federal Communications Commission divestiture proposals that led the Commission to order a hearing on the fundamental issue of Sinclair’s lack of candor, thus ending any chance at merger approval in any reasonable timeframe. Tribune looks forward to holding Sinclair accountable in court.”

FCC chair Ajit Pai said he has issues with the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger, raising a big cloud over the deal.

“Based on a thorough review of the record, I have serious concerns about the Sinclair-Tribune transaction. The evidence we’ve received suggests that certain station divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law," he said in a statement. "When the FCC confronts disputed issues like these, the Communications Act does not allow it to approve a transaction. Instead, the law requires the FCC to designate the transaction for a hearing in order to get to the bottom of those disputed issues. For these reasons, I have shared with my colleagues a draft order that would designate issues involving certain proposed divestitures for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge.”

Designating a deal for a hearing has been a death knell in the past, but one former FCC official sees a way for Sinclair to address the FCC issues and perhaps head off the hearing.

[Read: Sinclair Prunes Station Holdings To Prepare For Tribune Acquisition]

Pai has been accused by Democrats of favoring the deal, but that was clearly not his message Monday in a highly unusual move for a Republican deregulatory chairman.

Pai already has the vote of Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel, though it is unclear how the other two Republicans would vote. The FCC needs three votes to designate it for hearing, but also to approve it, so the move is obviously a big blow to Sinclair's chances.

Sinclair has been criticized for sidecar deals with spin-off stations that would allow it to keep its hand in, and for the relationship to some of the potential new station owners with existing Sinclair officials.

"The proposed divestitures, which are necessary to bring the Sinclair-Tribune transaction into compliance with the commission’s rules, are sham transactions that enable Sinclair to retain control over the divested assets, albeit under the guise of control by a third party," deal critic Newsmax said last week in pushing back on the deal. "This is most evident regarding the divestiture to Cunningham Broadcasting Group (“Cunningham”) and WGN-TV LLC, both of which have close connections to the controlling shareholders of Sinclair and both of which are receiving very favorable prices for the assets they hope to acquire."

“Today’s announcement is welcome," she said in a statement. "As I have noted before, too many of this agency’s media policies have been custom built to support the business plans of Sinclair Broadcasting. With this hearing designation order, the agency will finally take a hard look at its proposed merger with Tribune. This is overdue and favoritism like this needs to end."

The move means that almost certainly the current appeals court decision on the FCC's restoration of the UHF discount, an FCC decision that paved the way for the Sinclair deal, will be issued before that hearing. If the decision reverses the FCC's restoration of the discount, the deal is hobbled no matter what the FCC Administrative Law Judge decision is.

[Read: Unions Take Aim At Sinclair-Tribune Merger]

Former FCC official and deal supporter Adonis Hoffman thinks there is still hope.

"This is an invitation to the parties to restructure the divestitures," he said. "If the overall deal is in keeping with the company's long-term interests, which I think it its, they could do that in advance of the hearing, and salvage the deal."

"I applaud Chairman Pai’s decision today to designate the Sinclair-Tribune transaction for further review and hearings," said Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy of the chairman's announcement. "Clearly this decision is based on the facts and law--specifically that Sinclair has not complied with requirements set forth by the FCC to promote diversity, localism and competition."

"When Sinclair has been forced to sell stations during previous mergers, it has routinely sold them to family and friends and then signed agreements to control the programming on those stations," said Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress, which opposes thd deal. "The FCC is right to call out this scheme."

“We are pleased that Chairman Pai has circulated an order designating the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger for a hearing," said Jeff Blum, SVP of public policy and government affairs for Dish. "It is a prudent step to closely scrutinize whether the proposed merger serves the public interest and consumers.”

“The American Cable Association applauds FCC Chairman Pai for seeking the support of the other Commissioners to refer the Sinclair-Tribune transaction and the associated station sales to Fox and others to an Administration Law Judge, an action that’s understood to signal the Commission’s disapproval of the deal," said American Cable Association President Matt Polka. ACA is part of a coalition opposing the deal. "From the beginning, ACA has insisted that the transaction is unlawful and certain to create numerous consumer harms, such as higher retransmission consent fees. It’s well past time for Sinclair to realize that its effort to engage in massive media consolidation has failed and that it should withdraw the transaction without delay so the FCC no longer needs to devote any of its limited resources to a doomed endeavor.”

“We applaud Chairman Pai’s decision to challenge important elements of this transaction," said Phillip Berenbroick, senior policy counsel at Public Knowledge. "The FCC’s merger analysis requires that transactions affirmatively serve the public interest. It was clear at the outset that Sinclair Broadcast Group’s attempt to acquire Tribune Media would harm the public interest and consumers, and decrease diversity and independence in local broadcasting." 

I’ve had a few “aha” moments over the past couple of months when it comes to ATSC 3.0 that have given me some much-needed peace of mind. While I do believe the ATSC 3.0 standard offers TV broadcasters a legitimate path forward to compete with the burgeoning world of digital media alternatives, I must confess I have had a nagging feeling for some time about consumer uptake of Next Gen TV.

It’s not that I don’t believe consumers will buy 3.0 sets when they become available. I do. But my concern has been that the purchases won’t happen quickly enough to propel Next Gen TV down the runway at the velocity needed for a smooth take off. Equally concerning has been how fast broadcasters will put their 3.0 plants together and whether they will cooperate and cohost to put Next Gen TV on air.

Then in May, Anne Schelle, managing director of the Pearl TV consortium told her audience at the annual ATSC meeting in Washington, D.C., that—give or take a little sliding—that by Q3 2019 ATSC 3.0 will reach a third of U.S. households. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the room who raised an eyebrow to that.

But then I spoke on the phone separately with Schelle and Dave Folsom, retired CTO of Raycom Media who is consulting on the Phoenix 3.0 model market project, and the projection seemed a little more achievable. Markets like Raleigh, Dallas and Phoenix are on air, and, according to Folsom, Pearl TV anticipates expanding the model market template to other cities around the country sooner than later.

Still, I wondered, will Next Gen TVs make it into the homes of Americans quickly enough to make 3.0 a viable platform for broadcasters—not as a technology, but as a business.

Then on June 27 at a joint meeting of six Midwest state broadcast associations, Dave Arland, executive director of the Indiana Broadcasters Association, assuaged my fears when he told the 120 broadcasters gathered for the event that 46,000 Ultra HD sets are sold in the United States each day. That’s one every two seconds!

With dual 1.0 and 3.0 tuner sets expected when Next Gen TVs come to market in the 2019–2020 timeframe, it’s not hard to see that takeoff velocity is achievable. Based on Arland’s figures, nearly 17 million 3.0-enabled sets will be sold in their first year of existence. Within seven years, that will be one for every U.S. TV household.

Of course, that doesn’t take into account households that buy two or three sets in a year and others that won’t buy for a decade or more. But the bottom line is on average the receivers will be there in far less time than the analog-to-DTV transition took.

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

Broadcast station merger and acquisition activity totaled $5.11 billion in the second quarter of 2018, the biggest quarter since second quarter 2007, according to Kagan.

Kagan says that 98 percent of the volume was attributable to TV stations sales, led by Gray Television’s acquisition of Raycom Media for $3.65 billion.

The second-quarter total also includes some sales designed to help Sinclair Broadcast Group’s acquisition of Tribune pass regulator muster. The big deals including the sale of seven stations to 21 Century Fox for $10 million and nine stations to Standard Media Group for $441.7 million.

Despite the strong volume, the pace of deal making was relatively slow. Excluding the Gray deal and Sinclair spinoffs, volume would have been just $185.8 million, the lowest since fourth quarter of 2016.

PARIS, DENVER & SINGAPORE–ATEME has announced that it is supplying Sinclair Broadcast Group with live video encoding technology for Sinclair’s Dallas experimental ATSC 3.0 test for single frequency networks.

ATEME is providing its TITAN encoding platform for ATSC 1.0 (MPEG-2) “Host Station” encoding and “NextGen” 3.0 (HEVC) encoding, providing efficient, Live/Mux statistical multiplexing enabled VBR encoding across both transmission platforms. Two years ago, ATEME introduced HE-MPEG2, a high-efficiency MPEG-2 codec, which is compatible with MPEG-2 compliant decoders, including legacy set-top boxes, digital televisions and digital to analog MPEG-2 converters.

[Read: Q&A: Mark Aitken On Dallas Next-Gen SFN Trial]

Based on the bandwidth efficiency of HE-MPEG2 in conjunction with ATEME’s TITAN Live/Mux statistical multiplexing, the ATSC stations have increased mux density by 30 percent without compromising video quality, according to ATEME. TITAN is a pure software encoder-transcoder that can provide a migration path to ATSC 3.0, HEVC or SHVC (scalable HEVC) and runs on any private/public and on/off-premises cloud infrastructure.

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

BOSTON & BALTIMORE—The Dallas Designated Market Area is taking its first step toward Next Gen TV with the construction of single frequency network sites to broadcast ATSC 3.0 signals via a partnership between Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, Univision Local Media and American Tower Corporation.

The agreement between the broadcasters and American Tower will create a SFN for the testing, validation and deployment of ATSC 3.0. The goal is to develop a roadmap for broadcasters and increase the speed in which Next Gen TV services can be provided to consumers. Some of the services that ATSC 3.0 is expected to bring to consumers includes improved over-the-air reception, immersive audio, deep-indoor reception, mobile reception, zoned programming/advertising, automotive services and advanced emergency alerting.

The FCC gave its approval for broadcasters to voluntarily start rolling out ATSC 3.0 in November 2017 and other cities have begun to plan deployments to test the standard, most notably Phoenix.

“With the FCC’s approval of the ATSC 3.0 standard, broadcasters are eager and ready to demonstrate its many capabilities, business opportunities and consumer benefits,” said Chris Ripley, president and CEO of Sinclair.

Speaking on the Dallas partnership, American Tower’s Steven Marshall said: “The combination of our broadcast and wireless assets, industry expertise, coupled with these three television broadcaster leaders will help to make ATSC 3.0 a reality for broadcasters.”

No timetable for the construction of these single frequency networks was given.

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

TORONTO—Sinclair Broadcast Group has announced it has acquired a number of Masstech’s Masstech for News systems to create a centralized hub for sharing content among all of its news-producing stations. Masstech for News is a newsroom sharing, media management and archiving system that will simplify movement of video and stories between Sinclair locations and archives.

Masstech for News

A number of Sinclair stations already featured Masstech for News, but the new installation raise the number of stations by more than 50 percent. The system offers these stations automated local archive management; drag-and-drop sharing workflows; and access to content in the archives of other similarly-equipped Sinclair locations.

Additional features offered through the Masstech for News system are the Masstech Media Wires feature, which enables journalists to push selected stories and videos to other stations across the group; and the Video-Follows-Text technology, which ensures all text, metadata and media are transferred together with a drag-and-drop option.

Sinclair Broadcast Group owns and operates 163 TV stations in 79 markets.

Masstech is a provider of software for the management of digital media content and related information. The company is based in Toronto.

BURLINGTON, MASS. – Nationwide television operator Sinclair Broadcast Group is updating its production facilities and has announced that it will implement the Avid MediaCentral Platform for end-to-end workflows with the aim of unifying the group’s 62 news stations.

Sinclair’s new core workflow includes: iNews for news content creation and distribution and collaborative newsroom management; ISIS shared storage; automated production asset management with Interplay│ Production; Avid MediaCentral │ UX, the cloud-based platform that allows collaboration and the sharing of content using the same workflows; and AirSpeed video servers.

With Avid Everywhere, Sinclair is able to use a plug and play system model that can be scaled and adapted as needed, based on the size of each station.