EAST LANSING, MICH.—The U.S. Department of Education has awarded a $1 million grant to WKAR Public Media here to deliver educational content to underserved families in mid-Michigan via NextGen TV. 

The funds will cover WKAR’s operational costs associated with devices to receive NextGen TV service for the delivery of educational content and resources as well as evaluation of the effort.

The Congressionally Funded Community Project (CFCP) grant will help to fund the Strengthening Equitable K-12 to Education to the Lansing Area Via Free Over the Air Service project. WKAR will collaborate with its partners at Michigan State University and throughout the local area on its implementation, WKAR said.

“We are honored to receive this grant to support our community through NextGen TV technology,” said Shawn Turner, WKAR interim general manager and director of broadcasting. “The opportunities that are presented by ATSC 3.0 are vast and will help stations like WKAR super serve their communities through interactive content delivered via the broadcast signal. WKAR continues to research, innovate and explore new applications in NextGen TV as part of our NextGen Media Innovation Lab.”

According to WKAR, more details about the effort to support K-12 education will be available over the coming months.

More information is available on the WKAR website.

EAST LANSING, Mich.—Another market has begun transmitting ATSC 3.0, with WKAR-TV at Michigan State University, the latest to push out the NextGen TV standard. Dave Arland of Arland Communications and ATSC's media contact confirmed the news to TV Technology.

With this, East Lansing becomes the 11th market to begin transmitting ATSC 3.0 signals. Others include Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Portland, Ore., and Nashville, Tenn. The full list is shown on ATSC’s ATSC 3.0 deployment map.

WKAR was first granted an experimental license to broadcast ATSC 3.0 by the FCC in 2018. In September 2019, it opened the Media Innovation Lab, which was tasked with experimenting with different applications of the ATSC 3.0 broadcasting standard.

“Across our nation, public broadcasting stations like WKAR provide essential public services and information to our audiences,” said Susi Elkins, general manager of WKAR. “We believe ATSC 3.0 can increase our ability to serve communities in new and exciting ways and we look forward to leveraging this opportunity to forge a path ahead.”

Updated with quote from WKAR

WASHINGTON—A conversational agent for broadcasters from Michigan State University and WKAR Public Media and a chatbot API for music stations from the University of Minnesota are this year’s winners of the PILOT Innovation Challenge, the NAB technology initiative announced.

“We are pleased with the quality and innovation of this year’s submissions as well as the success of our new approach to the Innovation Challenge,” said PILOT Executive Director John Clark. “We look forward to working with the winners to develop their prototypes and ultimately provide broadcasters the ability to better serve their communities through AI.”

A new feature of the program this year is providing support to the winners to develop an AI prototype of their submission to enhance broadcast audience engagement, according to PILOT.

Participants were asked to submit concepts addressing the challenge of building an AI character that can have conversations with individual viewers, listeners or consumers.

A purse of $150,000 from PILOT will be divided among the winners. They also will receive mentorship, ongoing feedback during development and a trip to the 2020 NAB Show, April 18-22, in Las Vegas, where they will demo their prototypes.

This year’s winners are:

• DeepTalk: A Conversational Agent for Broadcasters—Michigan State University (MSU), NextGen Media Innovation Lab, College of Communication Arts and Sciences; MSU’s iProBe Lab, Department of Computer Science and Engineering; and WKAR Public Media.
• Jukebot, a chatbot API capable of answering simple questions and getting feedback from users for music stations—University of Minnesota, Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Innovation Challenge finalists included:

• AI-driven interactive news on mobile devices—Embody Design;
• Leveraging Conversational AI to Grow Audience, Deepen Engagement and Shape Content Strategy—University of Georgia: Department of Statistics, Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication New Media Institute;
• Kuralt.AI: 3D Broadcast Avatar—University of North Carolina, Reese News Lab, Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

More information is available on the PILOT website.

EAST LANSING, Mich.—After launching in December with the specific goal of helping public broadcasters transition to the ATSC 3.0 standard, Apollo PublicTV has announced a new service that will let stations broadcast NextGen TV immediately, NextGen Broadcast (NGB).

This patent-pending three-in-one solution from Apollo PublicTV is designed to leverage a station’s existing ATSC 1.0 broadcast spectrum to launch ATSC 3.0 services, requiring no 3.0 license or spectrum and no 3.0 broadcast chain.

Available in a “pay-as-you-use” model, an NGB subscriber station is offered 3.0-ready receivers, RF equipment and access to cloud tools that will enable them to create 3.0 services, conduct test scenarios, provide educational sessions to station staff, perform PoC’s and field trials and get the word out to their communities and local governments.

WKAR Public Media at Michigan State University, a partner in Apollo PublicTV, is the first station to go on-air with the NGB service.

“The promise of potential NextGen TV is now being made available to every public broadcaster with Apollo’s NGB as a service solution,” said Suis Elkins, general manager at WKAR Public Media. “It’s exciting to be able to provide a clear migration path to NextGen TV. The solution we’re announcing today allows public broadcasters the opportunity to bring NextGen TV broadcast experiences to their communities with minimal effort and cost commitment.”

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

EAST LANSING, Mich. – WKAR Public Media at Michigan State University and Gaian Solutions, Inc., have launched the Apollo PublicTV Platform, a NextGen TV accelerator platform for public broadcasters.

Apollo PublicTV Platform offers broadcasters a suite of services including NextGen TV master classes, ATSC 3.0 receiver and transmitter starter kits, access to NextGen TV broadcast chains, and the capability to conduct lab and field trials. Apollo PublicTV Platform also offers a certification program for technology providers, plus business consulting services for organizations interested in identifying and launching specific market-by-market NextGen TV opportunities.

This new platform offers NextGen TV services through tools that apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in a fully cloud-based, virtualized environment to enable the convergence of broadcast and digital workflows.

[See also NEXTGEN TV Innovation Lab Running at Michigan State's WKAR]

Through Apollo PublicTV Platform, public broadcasters can now offer rich content experiences in education, alerting, health information, community fundraising, and other domains, according to Susi Elkins, general manager at WKAR Public Media.

“Putting the tools of the Apollo PublicTV Platform in the hands of public broadcasters means that local communities can begin to benefit right now from the promise of NextGen TV,” Elkins said. “Barriers to moving forward immediately include a lack of significant investment and the absence of a clear migration path to NextGen TV. The Apollo PublicTV Platform partnership we’re announcing today is a marketplace collaboration designed to address those barriers. Apollo PublicTV Platform will help stations manage the convergence of operations now, to be well positioned for the future.”

Apollo PublicTV Platform tools include data analytics, app designer tools, AI agents, Software Development Kits (SDKs) and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for rapid service curation, an ATSC 3.0 receiver application stack, and the necessary business applications to manage carrier-grade content services.

“The coming NextGen TV economy will ensure overall growth of the broadcast industry and its long overdue integration with the digital transformation ecosystem,” said Chandra Kotaru, CEO and founder of Gaian Solutions. “Public broadcasters are in a unique position to leverage NextGen TV opportunities. Apollo PublicTV Platform was designed to accelerate this phenomenon.”

“The Apollo PublicTV Platform instantly opens up new opportunities and better experiences through cutting edge technology, open APIs, and toolkits,” said Prabu David, dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at MSU. “Gaian Solutions has been instrumental in conceptualizing, designing, developing, and operating the Apollo PublicTV Platform with WKAR at MSU. We are very hopeful this will put public broadcasters at the forefront of leading innovation in the NextGen TV space.”

“America’s Public Television Stations see great potential in the Apollo PublicTV Platform developed by Gaian in cooperation with Susi Elkins and her team at WKAR-TV,” said Patrick Butler, president and CEO. “We look forward to working with them and with the public station community to make Apollo PublicTV Platform an accelerator of ATSC 3.0 adoption and of all the new service and revenue opportunities the NextGen broadcast standard holds in store for public television.”

Butler continued, “APTS intends to play an active role in familiarizing stations with the Apollo PublicTV Platform and ensuring that every station understands the transformative promise of ATSC 3.0 and the ability of Apollo PublicTV Platform to help make that promise come true for stations of every size.”

WKAR at Michigan State University, Gaian Solutions, and APTS invite all content and spectrum based entrepreneurs, digital transformation agencies, broadcasters, and technology vendors to collaborate on Apollo PublicTV Platform, the new open platform for NextGen TV. 

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

EAST LANSING, Mich.—Michigan State University has hopped on the NEXTGEN TV train, opening a Media Innovation Lab that will experiment with different applications of the ATSC 3.0 broadcasting standard. The lab is hosted at the WKAR Public Media station.

WKAR was granted an experimental license in 2018 by the FCC to broadcast in ATSC 3.0, which resulted in the construction of of the NextGen Media Innovation Lab at MSU’s College of Communications Arts and Sciences.

“This innovative space serves as a collaborative hub where students, faculty and researchers will explore the future of television and other applications afforded by the emerging ATSC 3.0 digital standard,” said Susi Elkins, director of broadcasting and general manager of WKAR.

“The new standard integrates broadcast with broadband, and features heightened mobility and a more efficient use of the broadcast spectrum,” Elkins continued. “These attributes allow numerous opportunities for multidisciplinary research on customization and interactivity.”

Michigan State officially opened the NextGen Media Innovation Lab on Sept. 19.

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

WASHINGTON—Four NAB member stations have been selected by Pilot as the recipients of grants designed to fund paid engineering or media technology internships in the spring of 2020. The stations are WISR/WBUT/WLER, Butler County Radio Network in Butler, Pa.; KNXV, Scripps Media Inc. in Phoenix; WNKY, Marquee Broadcasting in Bowling Green, Ky.; and WKAR-AM, -FM, -TV, Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich.

The program, which began this past spring, is in partnership with the NABLF to help grow technical and engineering talent. The recipients are NAB members that do not currently offer engineering or media technology internships. Also as part of the program, NAB provides resources to help identify and support interns, including having them attend the 2020 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

“Pilot and the NAB Leadership Foundation remain committed to assisting NAB member stations in attracting the best and brightest new candidates to a career in broadcast technology,” said Sam Matheny, NAB’s executive vice president and chief technology officer.

Since it was initiated, the program has provided technology internship grants to 13 organizations.

For more information on the program, visit nabpilot.org/techinterns/.

WESTMORE, Vt. — WKAR, Michigan State University’s public television station, was granted an experimental license from the FCC to begin ATSC 3.0 transmission.

The station will join a small, but growing number of TV broadcasters around the country that are on-air with Next Gen TV service.

Given its proximity to Detroit and the research muscle available in various departments on campus, WKAR will give the broadcast industry the opportunity to examine how broadcasting data via 3.0 — not over 5G wireless circuits — may play into the future of vehicles, autonomous or not.

Beyond transportation, the station has other investigations to do, such as looking at how 3.0 can be used to better educate children.

However, the most important thing WKAR could do by beginning 3.0 operations is simply to serve as a lighthouse to other public TV broadcasters, pointing the safest routes to new service opportunities and warning against the hidden hazards just below the surface that could bring calamity to a Next Gen TV rollout.

I spoke with Marc Hand, CEO and co-founder of the Public Media Company, this week about why the WKAR deployment of ATSC 3.0 is important and what the Next Gen TV standard offers public television stations nationwide.

(An edited transcript.)

TVTechnology:WKAR in East Lansing, Mich., announced it has been granted an experimental license from the FCC for ATSC 3.0 operations. What’s the significance of this, not just for WKAR, but more broadly for public broadcasters around the country?

Marc Hand: I think this is both an important and significant next step in an ATSC 3.0 Next Generation future for public television. The reason it is important is because this is the first public station to enter the arena to do ATSC 3.0 television.

I think for WKAR, being tied to Michigan State, there are a number of broader research, development and testing areas that they can move into, given the depth all of the departments of Michigan State have. This link to the Michigan State departments offers an opportunity to build a range of technology and consumer tests that could then apply more broadly to public stations. Their proximity and ties to the auto industry may also offer opportunities to test ATSC 3.0 uses applied to future autonomous vehicles.

[Read: WKAR First PBS Station To Gain FCC Authorization For ATSC 3.0 Broadcasts]

Overall, the ATSC 3.0 WKAR test is important for public broadcasting because we do feel that there are a number of areas that are emerging in 3.0 that will provide important service and new revenue opportunities for public broadcasting.

This experiment will help WKAR and the system as a whole to be able to test and develop ATSC 3.0 applications that ultimately will be substantially important for public broadcasting and the communities they serve.

TVT:One of the roles the Public Media Company fulfills is advising public broadcasters on the opportunities presented by ATSC 3.0. Which are most important and why?

Hand: The core of why 3.0 is so important for public broadcasting is because the business model of public broadcasting is built on service to audience, and that includes a range of things that will be made available by 3.0 technology.

That includes much more in-depth opportunities in the area of education. We see that as an important broadening area of service. Public broadcasters can really leverage the technologies of 3.0 to better serve audiences in the educational area.

Certainly, emergency services and some of the testing that public broadcasters are doing. Particularly, we see emergency alerting as an important area.

Thirdly, in the theme of better service to audience, I think the ability to target content and enable audiences to have a more in-depth ability to explore content under public broadcasting, I think, is going to be an important, critical piece.

I think the whole area of data and data distribution and better data understanding audiences will be important. Those capacities under 3.0 are going to enhance the ability of public broadcasters to better serve their audiences.

We also feel there are other new technologies, particularly in the area of immersive sound experimentation Dolby is doing. Those areas could not only enhance what public television is doing but enhance the services public radio is providing.

We see that as the technology develops there will be new emerging areas. That ties back to why the experimentation with WKAR is so important. We’d like to see those kinds of things happen in other markets with other public broadcasters to be able to enhance the testing WKAR is doing.

TVT:You brought up immersive audio enhancements for public TV and radio broadcasters to better serve their audiences. What do you have in mind?

Hand: An example is we did a presentation on ATSC 3.0 in Denver, and we invited Rocky Mountain PBS and Colorado Public Television Channel 12 and Colorado Public Radio and KUNC up in Fort Collins-Greeley, Colo.

We see 3.0 because of its enhanced capacity for audio delivery as opening the doors to closer partnerships between public television and public radio because of the capacities of 3.0, especially in markets that build out single frequency networks.

TVT:What advice — if any — are you giving public stations about SFNs? Do you see them as enablers for new business and service opportunities that can fit within the budget constraints public broadcasters face?

Hand: It is still a little too early to tell, but we do think the technology and the enhanced pathway of a single frequency network is going to be important.

Obviously, we are following the work commercial broadcasters are doing with single frequency networks. We’d certainly like to see more testing, and that could parallel with what WKAR is doing and being able to test more. Again, there might be some applications for single frequency networks, such as state networks in Nebraska or Arkansas that cover large areas. In some of those areas, they are the only media serving those areas. Those signals could be enhanced with single-frequency networks.

One of the Public Media Venture Group stations is the Utah Education Network. I think they have 200 translators that deliver their signal all over the state of Utah. Those could be enhanced with SFNs.

So, we think some unique testing by public broadcasting might be able to explore some of the more unique needs that relate to SFNs for public broadcasters.

I think with all of these things, the ability to test and the resources to do that is one of the things we are focused on with the Public Media Venture Group. That is, how to bring in more resources to do that kind of media testing in various markets around the country.

TVT:Beside the service side of the public television offer, does 3.0 hold new potential for what can be done with fundraising?

Hand: ATSC 3.0 could enhance the way stations approach fundraising. For example, with public television being able to distinguish streams of programming going to existing donors versus programming that is designed for those who are not yet donors.

So, being able to focus programming by distinguishing those kinds of audiences, and with the menu-driven opening screen being able to much more easily do donate buttons.

I think the other thing is being able to provide more depth of programming. So, if audiences are interested in certain types of programs, being able to have donation levels for enhanced subscription levels for audiences that want access to those types of programming. Or, perhaps more of an in-depth look at some of the programming public broadcasting is already producing.

By being able to target content opens up new ways of building and deepening relationships with audiences. That is a key to driving membership.

TVT:Where do public broadcasters stand with FCC rules — particularly the ability to partner with commercial broadcasters to make some of their bandwidth available for for-profit endeavors, such as datacasting?

Hand: The existing rules do enable that. They’re ancillary and supplementary rules from the FCC, and they do allow public stations, when the content is targeted — not general broadcast content. So, the rules do allow public stations to generate revenue from data distribution, which opens up possibilities that didn’t exist before 3.0.

The FCC, obviously, is still implementing some of the rules related to 3.0. And we expect that to be an option that currently exists for public stations and wouldn’t require any new rules to allow public stations to take advantage of those types of revenue generation opportunities, which don’t exist under traditional broadcast.

TVT:Is there anything else you would like to add?

Hand: We are certainly very excited about 3.0. We are holding a meeting of the Venture Group stations at the end of September for chief technology officers in Raleigh, so they can spend some time with WRAL. We really want to learn from the experiences of WRAL so the CTOs of the Venture Group stations can go back and start thinking about applying those experiences and knowledge learned by WRAL over the past year or so.

That will help the WKAR group, but also help the other stations in the Venture Group to understand specific applications.

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

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — The Federal Communications Commission has granted a new experimental license to Michigan State University and public TV station WKAR, who plan to launch a next-generation TV broadcasting station and a new media lab driven by the next-gen ATSC 3.0 standard.

The announcement was made by FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly during a visit to WKAR Public Media studios.

“We have authorized a new broadcast standard and it’s going to open up the doors to what television may be in the future,” O’Rielly said. “WKAR is now authorized to test out ATSC 3.0 in their new lab and work with public broadcasting stations covering 200 million Americans.”

WKAR is the first public broadcasting station in the United States to receive FCC authorization to begin experimental ATSC 3.0 broadcasts, the station said, and expects to begin ATSC 3.0 experimental broadcasting in September. The license is good for six months and then WKAR will be required to petition for an extension to continue the broadcasts.

[Read: ATSC Meeting Explores 3.0 Deployments]

“Next Gen TV has great potential to enhance our media experience by merging the best of broadcasting and broadband,” said Prabu David, dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, which houses WKAR. “The experimental license offers MSU and WKAR a test bed to explore new media innovations in education, information and even autonomous vehicles in depth and in the field.”

WKAR’s experimental ATSC 3.0 station will broadcast in Michigan on digital frequency 35 with a broadcast reach of approximately 40 miles. The technology allows for features such as 4K ultra high-definition video and multichannel immersive audio.

With the ATSC 3.0 station as a test bed, the university also plans to open a new research facility within WKAR and the College of Communication Arts and Sciences called the NextGen Media Innovation Lab. The lab will focus on the creation of education and public media content including early childhood education, telehealth and distance education, connected and autonomous vehicles, agriculture and emergency response.

One of the first projects planned for the NextGen Media Innovation Lab will be how to use ATSC 3.0 to improve early childhood education, said Susi Elkins, director of broadcasting and general manager of WKAR. “We intend to focus on ATSC 3.0 applications that are central to the core values of noncommercial television licensees — education and the betterment of our communities.”

In partnership with the Public Media Venture Group and in collaboration with other noncommercial educational television stations, the NextGen MI Lab will provide an opportunity to test ATSC 3.0 applications and share findings.

The capabilities of ATSC 3.0 continue to be front and center at events like the May Advanced Television Systems Committee Annual Meeting where representatives from the likes of Pearl TV, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Capitol Broadcasting discussed just how far Next Gen TV has come over the past few years. Consumer labs are being set up to gather feedback from viewers while field tests continue to roll out at stations around the country.

It was at that event that Michigan State’s David revealed that the university would be focusing on exploring opportunities for creating interactive content via ATSC 3.0.

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