HUNT VALLEY, Md.–Sinclair Broadcast has deployed innovative cloud-based news and content gathering and production workflows by combining technologies from Avid, Sony and Marquis Broadcast. This new approach integrates Avid MediaCentral, Sony Electronics’ C3 Portal gateway service and Marquis software and leverages 5G networks to reduce connectivity costs while enriching the flow of news metadata to accelerate the speed of its news operations. Using this method, we’re getting news to air faster than ever.

Our fundamental strategy is to democratize news acquisition, with every journalist or photographer having fast content delivery to news production centers. This transformation requires a collaborative approach to streamline the workflow. We’re engaged with Avid on its MediaCentral news production platform, Sony on cameras and C3 Portal and Marquis to enable complex workflow integrations. 

New News Workflows
We’ve enabled real business and operational benefits, with fast story turnaround and structured metadata automatically delivered to newsrooms, which can then cut several versions of the same story to deliver to digital platforms faster and with improved relevance. We have six stations engaged to refine the technologies and we’re continually optimizing workflows for best ROI and operational outcome. 

There are challenges to overcome but we’re moving closer to having access to all content in near real time. The next steps are around compression efficiency to increase quality while reducing bandwidth consumption and improving metadata transparency throughout the process.

Fundamental to Sony’s C3 Portal news workflow is the automatic preservation and enrichment of metadata from the point of origination. C3 Portal supports pushing metadata to the camera before shooting commences; for example, iNEWS slug information and assignment data, preserving this metadata throughout the production process when the story checks into Avid MediaCentral. Future workflows will allow rights information—and therefore genealogy—to be automatically maintained from creation throughout the edit and into archive.

Another powerful component of the new solution is the ability to send proxy video quickly back to the news production center via 5G network and Sony’s C3 Portal. The Marquis integration enables the “edit while record” feature in Media Composer so stories can be edited as soon as the proxy file starts ingesting. With a wide choice of Sony proxy resolutions, news organizations may easily take the proxy to air within seconds for fast news turnaround.

Sony's C3 Portal
This workflow automates extraction of sequence information from the Avid low-res proxy edit. With this sequence data, Marquis automatically retrieves the high-resolution media from either Sony’s C3 Portal, and the originating camera or originating camera cards. Assuming a 10:1 shooting ratio, this partial extraction process results in a 90% reduction in 5G data transferred and network bandwidth required. 

Using the dynamic relink feature in Avid, the high-res content simply drops into the timeline and automatically substitutes the low-res content, thus transforming news production. 

For more information on Sony, visit https://pro.sony/ue_US.

News that David D. Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair Inc., purchased Baltimore Sun Media from Alden Global Capital in mid-January surprised many, including yours truly. 

After all, print journalism is supposed to be in a state somewhere between life support and a death rattle (and that’s coming from a print journalist).

But Smith, a local businessman, reportedly sees value in the Baltimore Sun and its other media properties, which include The Capital and Maryland Gazette newspapers in Annapolis, the Carroll County Times, the Howard County Times and the Towson Times. A Washington Post story on the sale quotes Smith as saying: “I think the paper can be hugely profitable and successful and serve a greater public interest over time.”

To be clear, Smith reportedly bought the paper with his own money—not Sinclair’s. However, various stories on the acquisition report there could be future partnerships or collaborations with WBFF, Sinclair’s Fox affiliate in Baltimore.

Here’s where the acquisition may get interesting for the broadcast industry. WBFF has been on-air with ATSC 3.0 as part of the Baltimore lighthouse since July 2021. Plus, the broadcast group’s full-power WJLA and Class A LPTV WIAV in Washington, D.C., are on air with ATSC 3.0/NextGen TV.

Is it unreasonable to think that as more 3.0 sticks come online and broadcasters get some NextGen TV breathing room that leveraging some of the finer points of the standard, such as Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM) and single frequency networks (SFNs), won’t begin to surface?

Together these technologies can power hyperlocalized broadcasting—yes, over-the-air television broadcasting—from a technological point of view. What’s missing from this scenario is hyperlocalized content—in the form of news and advertising. 

Remember, Sinclair is already on air with an SFN in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area and is at work “densifying” the deployment of SFN transmitters and antennas there—just the thing the group needs to support hyperlocalization from a transmission point of view.

Perhaps Smith can leverage his newly acquired newsrooms, the natural news sense and newsmaker contacts of their “hyperlocal” beat reporters as well as the ad sales force of the Baltimore Sun and its suburban papers to fuel geo-targeted television news content and equally targeted commercials on this SFN.

Scott Livingston, senior vice president of news at Sinclair, has frequently discussed the broadcast group’s desire to “embed” reporters and news shooters more deeply into the community to generate stories that speak better to the people who live there. 

This desire, the technical capabilities of 3.0 and Smith’s acquisition seem to be aligning in a way that sets the stage to make this vision for NextGen TV a reality. Stay tuned.

Sinclair Broadcast Group today announced network distribution agreements with CBS Television Stations to add Sinclair’s free over-the-air (OTA) national broadcast TV networks Comet, CHARGE!, TBD and The Nest to additional CBS affiliates beginning this week.   

The expanded agreement positions Sinclair’s networks Comet and CHARGE! in CBS’s key channel slots in several of the country’s top-10 markets, adjacent to all five broadcast networks, the station group said.

Sci-fi/fantasy channel Comet is coming to WCBS in New York on Channel 2.5 and on Channel 5.5 on San Francisco’s KPIX. Crime drama diginet Charge! will now be available on KCAL in Los Angeles on Channel 9.3, Chicago’s WBBM on Channel 2.5 and on Channel 3.5 on KYW in Philadelphia KYW. 

Comedy channel TBD will now be on Miami’s WBFS, on Channel 33.6; WPSG in Philadelphia, Channel 57.2; and on Channel 44.2 on KPYX in San Francisco. The Nest Sinclair’s newest network, which offers ‘comfort food’ programming, is now on  Channel 9.2  on KCAL in Los Angeles and on Channel 44.4 on KPYX. 

Sinclair says that Comet, CHARGE!, TBD. and The Nest were the fastest growing multicast networks in the country in 2023.

Introduction
The Holy Grail of spectrum planning is finding the most efficient transmission path for the most used data.  In today’s digital world, this data can range from NBA basketball games to enhanced GPS coordinates to 3D maps for autonomous cars.  International and domestic spectrum czars have recognized that flexible channel use is the licensing key, and U.S. broadcasters have jumped at the opportunity.  While continuing to provide public interest-based video programming, they are now fully embracing a new transmission standard: ATSC 3.0, aka NextGen Broadcasting.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute, with help from the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), has cobbled together a different option: the so-called “5G Broadcast System.”  5G Broadcast is built on the existing unicast 4G LTE waveform.  It is far from “new.” Despite the hype (and money) surrounding these two options—ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast—they are not equal. Is this Betamax vs. VHS? Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD? PlayStation vs. Xbox? Or is this something more dynamic? Which is better? Read on. (Spoiler alert: it’s ATSC 3.0!)

Background
Technological advances and audience demand have pushed past plain-old linear program services. Free over-the-air (OTA) transmissions are giving way to paid, on-demand services, both physically connected (cable, fiber, phones, internet) and wirelessly connected (satellites, cellular and WiFi). Those have been, by and large, inefficient, one-to-many, dedicated, unicast services.    

U.S. broadcasters, recognizing their inherent advantage of robust, one-to-many, high power/high tower (HPHT) broadcast capabilities, have now added fundamental enhancements. Those include transmissions using the same “language” of the internet—Internet Protocol (IP)—and new frequency modulation and coding technologies for reliable mobile reception. They have also solved the challenge of delivering hyper-localized content to different parts of a community. 

The new capabilities of ATSC 3.0 are elegant, efficient, and evolvable, aligning perfectly with the increased demand for multimedia content over mobile devices, which have swamped conventional cellular unicast networks. For television broadcasters, the ‘ALL IP’ standard and associated revenue projections have stoked the imaginations of those looking for whole new business opportunities.  

Meanwhile some entrenched wireless players (e.g. Qualcomm and Ericsson) are hyping approaches and technologies that facially appear to focus on similar objectives. While this reinforces the idea of additional revenue opportunities in mobile and datacasting, the allure is essentially illusory. Yes, they both provide IP transport, are more efficient than previous iterations and provide enhanced content.  But the similarities end at the physical layer: The ATSC 3.0 system is dramatically more efficient, robust, mobile, and evolvable.

Here’s why.

ATSC 3.0 – NextGen Broadcasting
NextGen Broadcasting is the most advanced digital terrestrial broadcast standard designed for over-the-air reception. It delivers an extraordinarily improved viewing experience, supporting ultra-high-definition high dynamic range (HDR) content, immersive audio, interactivity, and other advanced features to both fixed and mobile devices. 

It also enables use of the broadcast spectrum for a host of new data services. It was designed from the outset to offer multiple simultaneous wireless-based services in addition to broadcast television. It simultaneously accommodates fixed, portable, and mobile use cases, allowing flexible spectrum utilization tailored to various new platforms. And the ATSC 3.0 standard is adaptable for different use cases in different countries. 

At the heart of the ATSC 3.0 standard is System Discovery Signaling—the so-called “Bootstrap.”  It serves as the universal entry point into the broadcast waveform, ensuring that all receive devices identify and decode each unique signal, even those yet to be defined. This “evolvability” attribute is key to ATSC 3.0 ability to expand and adapt to support emerging offerings.

ATSC 3.0 Key Features

• Ultra-High-Definition (UHD) and Immersive Audio: ATSC 3.0 supports UHD resolutions with higher image quality and immersive audio formats, enhancing the overall viewing experience.
  
• Hybrid Broadcast-Broadband: It seamlessly integrates OTA broadcasting with broadband, enabling interactive content, targeted advertising, and other data-related features.
  
• Advanced Emergency Infomation: The robust bootstrap permits triggers for advanced emergency alerting that can wake up devices at very low signal levels, enabling the delivery of rich media supplements to target geolocations.
  
• Interactive Services: Viewers can access interactive content, on-demand video, and personalized services through the hybrid capabilities of ATSC 3.0.
  
• Data Delivery as a Service: IP transport and one-to-many architecture of the high power/high tower broadcast service provides efficient delivery of common data including video offloading, enhanced GPS offerings, automobile telematics delivery and IoT support services.
  
• Efficient and Flexible Broadcast/Multicast: OTA broadcast, native to ATSC 3.0, enables efficient data delivery to multiple users of fixed and portable/mobile services simultaneously.

5G Broadcast
In Europe, the search for an IP-based solution for fixed and mobile broadcasting gained momentum when the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) Project shifted its focus to DVB-I (IP content delivery). Activities like those of 5G-Xcast, 5G-MAG identified needs and uses of IP-based delivery.  5G Broadcast emerged as a multicast technology specified by the 3GPP, designed to provide broadcast and multicast services over various networks. 

(Read more: What is 5G Broadcast?)

To be clear—5G Broadcast is based on the old 4G LTE waveform. Over the past few years, 3GPP has tried to meet the challenges of the OTA broadcast environment. But, despite work to better support OTA broadcast environments, efforts to improve the physical layer of the underlying 4G LTE Broadcast platform (time and frequency interleaving as an example) have been rejected and/or withdrawn, including the latest Release from 3GPP.

5G Broadcast Key Features:

1. Efficient Multicast: 5G broadcast uses multicast transmission, efficiently delivering data to multiple users simultaneously, reducing the network load compared to unicast streaming to individual users.
   
2. Content Delivery Efficiency: It efficiently distributes live events, emergency alerts, software updates, and other high-demand content to many users as a “one-to-many” service.
   
3. Cellular Network Integration: 5G broadcast could seamlessly integrate with existing 5G cellular networks, enabling mobile network operators to provide content services without significant infrastructure changes.
   
4. Broadcast Mode: It operates in broadcast mode where many users need access to the same content concurrently.

Comparing the Two
There has been considerable hype suggesting that these two technologies are roughly equivalent and that 5G Broadcast has an edge given it is a 3GPP standard. While both technologies employ IP transport and one-to-many wireless distribution technologies using the same modulation scheme, the similarities largely end there. 

The implied notion that, because 5G Broadcast is a 3GPP standard and in phones today, it somehow magically opens the market to hundreds of millions of devices compatible with 5G wireless reception is wishful thinking. Here are a half dozen reasons why ATSC wins out:

1. ATSC 3.0 has the Bootstrap: Absent from 5G Broadcast, the real technological magic of the Bootstrap is its ability to discover and identify a near infinite number of different signals (including those that have yet to be defined) and pass only the needed one to the specific receive device, thereby enabling a host of new services. More significantly, the robust bootstrap carries triggers for advanced emergency alerting that can wake up devices at very low signal levels—think deep indoors.
   
2. ATSC 3.0 has better error correction: Better error correction means a more reliable signal than 5G Broadcast. The two transmission standards are vastly different in performance. 5G Broadcast employs a suboptimal waveform.
   
3. ATSC 3.0 is “robust by design” in mobile environments: ATSC 3.0 outperforms 5G Broadcast in mobile environments with fast fading channels. Its sophisticated time interleaver provides a 3 dB to 11 dB performance advantage, depending on vehicle speeds. 5G Broadcast has worse pedestrian (<3 kph) performance and terrible mobile (Doppler) performance above 10 kph since it has NO bit interleaving. This may be one reason why older versions of 5G Broadcast have been discarded by mobile operators.
   
4. ATSC 3.0 is compatible with IMT Services: Claims that the ATSC 3.0 physical layer is incompatible with International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) services are misleading. ASTC 3.0 has demonstrated interworking at the IP level, and major mobile ecosystem stakeholders have endorsed this for future 3GPP standards activity. If differing physical layers were a real issue, WiFi (an IEEE standard), as an example, would similarly be an implementation problem.
   
5. ATSC 3.0 can share IMT resources: The assertion that only 5G Broadcast can share IMT resources is overstated. ATSC 3.0 can also achieve this through device-level solutions and network topology adjustments. While there are minor challenges any standard would face in integration at the device level (antenna size, receiver front-end, band-filtering as examples), there are solution paths at the device level (e.g., the MarkONE phone). Notably, there are no commercial phones today that support either 5G Broadcast or ATSC 3.0.
   
6. The cost of adding ATSC 3.0 to chips is negligible: While ATSC 3.0 is not yet integrated into IMT device system-on-chip silicon, the cost of adding an ATSC 3.0 demodulator is negligible compared to the incremental cost of mobile chipsets. The front-end frequency tuner, filters, and antenna(e) are common to either ATSC 3.0 or 5G Broadcast. 

Conclusion
In technology comparisons, it's crucial to separate what we think we know from the facts. 5G Broadcast has some visceral appeal:  Why not simply integrate and extend broadcast into the already existing cell phone 3GPP ecosystem? How hard can that be? However, that’s a compromise that has serious drawbacks. With 5G Broadcast you would give up on:

• a standard that can grow as needs and uses change,
• technological advancements and future capabilities while maintaining backwards compatibility, and
• maximizing the flexibility to do other things with your valuable spectrum. 

It’s as if you have a plot of land and are forever restricted to only growing corn on it.  Would you give up growing a more profitable plant or mining for minerals below the dirt or constructing a high rise to maximize the value of that land?  We should want to maximize the flexibility and new uses for our little “plot of spectrum.” The best equipment to maximize that is ATSC 3.0.  It’s the equivalent of a sophisticated EV tractor vs. a shovel. Go with the tractor. The upside is far, far greater.

In the latest dispute between broadcasters and virtual multichannel video program distributors (aks ‘vMVPDs), Sinclair Broadcast Group has removed its ABC affiliates from the Hulu Plus Live TV service, in an apparent disagreement over carriage terms between Sinclair and The Walt Disney Group, owner of Hulu and the ABC TV network. 

Although the live feeds have been removed, Hulu Plus Live subscribers still have access to ABC on-demand content. Hulu Plus Live, which costs $70 per month had 4.5 million subscribers at the end of 2022. Sinclair owns 27 ABC affliates in markets as small as Kirksville, Mo. to the largest, Washington D.C.

Although neither has issued any formal statements, Hulu tweeted the news last night:

This current dustup is the latest illustration of how traditional retrans disputes have now bled over from cable and satellite into the streaming realm. Unlike traditional pay-TV services—in which the pay-TV operators negotiate directly with local stations—in the case of vMPVDs, which have become increasingly competitive with pay-TV operators for viewers, networks negotiate carriage agreements for their affiliates directly with the streaming services, which include Hulu, Sling, FuboTV and YouTube TV.

Last month, a number of the nation’s largest station groups, including Nexstar, Sinclair, Hearst Tegna, Gray and Cox, removed their CBS affiliates in a similar dispute with FuboTV. Although many of the stations have since been restored to the FuboTV lineup, Nexstar, the nation’s largest station group, remains a holdout as of this week. 

“We are in a dispute with CBS right now over the Fubo situation,” Tom Carter said, in a report from Variety on Tuesday. “But keep in mind that virtual MVPDs contribute less than 10% of our distribution revenue and our distribution revenue is about half of our total revenue and Fubo is the smallest vMVPD we deal with. So we’re talking about a relatively minor amount of money, quite honestly, to both us and CBS. So it’s kind of easy to pick Fubo as a fight to have.”

DAYTON, Ohio—TV broadcasters in Dayton, Ohio have launched NextGen TV broadcasts (aka ATSC 3.0). Stations include: WKEF (Sinclair/ABC and Fox), WHIO-TV (Cox/CBS), WDTN (Nexstar/NBC), WPTD (PBS) and WRGT-TV (Cunningham Broadcasting/Dabl). 

Based on the same fundamental technology as the internet and digital apps, NextGen TV can support a wide range of features that are currently in development. In addition to providing a new, improved way for broadcasters to reach viewers with advanced emergency alerts, NextGen TV features stunning video with brilliant color, sharper images and deeper contrast to create a more life-like experience. 

This month’s launch in Dayton follows a decade of development and months of planning and preparation by the local stations. WRGT-TV, the lighthouse station in the market, has converted to ATSC 3.0 and along with its own programming, will broadcast the programming of the other participating stations in NextGen TV format. All programming of all participating stations will continue to be available in the existing ATSC 1.0 DTV format. BitPath, which is developing new data broadcasting services, led the planning process and coordinated efforts across the five television stations. 

LEAWOOD, Kan.—A wide-ranging discussion of NextGen TV possibilities available to broadcasters both in the U.S. and Jamaica was front and center during the “New Opportunities in NextGen Broadcast” virtual panel as part of the 2022 TV Tech Summit on Nov. 17.

Panelists included Stefan Hadl, senior vice president of broadcast engineering and technology at Hearst Television; Del Parks, president of technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group; Raymond Robinson, strategic account director at Crown Castle International; and John Schur, president of the Solutions Group at Telos Alliance.  

After a recap of where Sinclair and Hearst Television are along their ATSC 3.0 deployment paths, both Parks and Hadl agreed that encouraging broader and more rapid consumer adoption of NextGen TV will require the industry to begin offering 3.0-enabled service enhancements that set the next generation of television broadcasting apart from what is available with the existing DTV standard.

Both praised the recent Pearl TV announcement of a FastTrack program to make it easier for CE manufacturers to build HDMI-based 3.0 receiver dongles that can work with existing ATSC 1.0 sets equipped with an HDMI port as an important step in getting NextGen TV service in front of people.

An industrywide effort in which broadcasters actually pay some or all of the cost of such dongles should be on the table, said Parks.

Doing so not only would expose more viewers to the benefits of 3.0, but it would also make it possible to accelerate the currently indefinite sunset date for ATSC 1.0 service, making it easier and faster for broadcasters to begin exploiting all available broadcast bandwidth for new, potentially profitable service offerings, he said.

(Broadcasters were given a five-year ATSC 1.0 sunset by the FCC, but it is doubtful they will strand a large percentage of their audiences with 1.0 sets and no ability to receive 3.0 over the air.)

Whether or not the industry gets behind such an effort, Pearl’s initiative to accelerate development of receiver dongles is welcome news, said Hadl.

Telos Alliance’s Schur pointed out ATSC 3.0—particularly AC-4, the audio codec selected for use with the standard in the United States—offers broadcasters many “freebies” that he described as service enhancements that do not require additional investment in 3.0 technology beyond the cost of a basic deployment.

For example, object-based audio built into Dolby AC-4 is a pathway to new service offerings and opportunities. With object-based audio, enhancements like descriptive audio and multiple language audio tracks, are possible. Dialog enhancement, which viewers can use to pull forward dialog and push back music and effects is another freebie broadcasters can leverage to serve something new to their audiences, he said.

Crown Castle International’s Robinson brought everyone up to date on the deployment of ATSC 3.0 in Jamaica. There, the standard offers broadcasters several opportunities to serve viewers better. In particular, remote education and emergency alerting are two opportunities broadcasters will use in Jamaica to meet the needs of islanders.

There are challenges, however. Unlike the U.S., Jamaica is jumping directly from analog to 3.0; another difference is the socio-economic status of most Jamaicans, who are not likely to spend a large percentage of their annual income on a new NextGen TV set. That in turn makes some sort of analog-to-3.0 set top box all the more important to ultimate success. Whether or not CE makers will respond with an STB solution, is an unknown.

To view this session and others from the Nov. 17, 2022 TV Tech Summit on demand, register for the event here.

BALTIMORE & LOS ANGELES – Sinclair Television Group and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer are boldly going where no one has gone before. The two companies announced a new partnership to jointly create, develop and distribute a 24-hour/7 days a week science fiction multi-channel network. The channel will feature more than 1,500 hours of MGM content. Sinclair Television Group owns the channel, with MGM handling network operations, including programming. Steve Pruett, Sinclair Television Group co-chief operating officer, will oversee the venture.

The science fiction channel will launch in the fourth quarter 0f 2015 to 30 percent of the country. Sinclair and MGM are pursuing additional distribution deals with other broadcasters prior to the debut. The network will feature MGM TV series such as “Stargate,” “Poltergeist” and “Dead Like Me,” as well as other science fiction, fantasy and adventure titles.

Sinclair Television Group is a subsidiary of Sinclair Broadcast Group located in Baltimore. MGM is a film and television production and distribution company in Los Angeles.