Broadcasters Organize to Roll out Mobile DTV Nationwide


Broadcasters in the United States will need to move quickly to get mobile DTV (MDTV) signals on the air before receivers start showing up on store shelves. At the NAB Show this week, it was announced that a dozen broadcasters have joined together to provide the stations and spectrum needed to provide MDTV to150 million U.S. residents. The national MDTV service is called "Pearl Mobile DTV Company LLC" and includes Belo, Cox, Fox, Gannett Broadcasting, Scripps, Hearst Television, ION Television, Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., NBC, Post-Newsweek Stations and Raycom Media.

The size of group will allow it to generate interest and investment in MDTV from investors, wireless carriers, receiver manufacturers, retailers, programmers and advertisers.

Many markets will have several Pearl stations. This will make it easier and less expensive for the group-- and potentially other broadcasters that want to join in--to lease the sites and offer the repeaters needed to provide reliable MDTV service in the "urban canyons" and along major highways and perhaps even railroads used by passenger trains.

The formation of this group should do much to ensure MDTV will be a success – first in getting enough MDTV channels on the air to provide a market for receiver manufacturers and second, in providing the programming, business models and expertise to provide an enhanced MDTV experience along with reliable MDTV reception.

Doug Lung

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack.
A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.