MSTV Merges With NAB


On Wednesday, the Board of Directors of the Association for Maximum Service Television (MSTV) voted unanimously to approve merging MSTV with the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).

No further details on the merger have been released, but indications are NAB will support the engineering work that has been, as the MSTV web site says, the "heart and soul" of MSTV's mission.

I can't remember the last time I saw an NAB filing that involved technical issues such as interference, allocations or coverage that wasn't filed jointly with MSTV.

The Association of Maximum Service Television was formed in 1956, when it was called the Association of Maximum Service Telecasters.

When the FCC was planning the transition to "Advanced Television", the MSTV, in January 1995, provided the FCC with a Draft Channel Plan that would give every broadcaster a channel for DTV to use during the transition while minimizing interference to analog TV. It's fun to browse through that original listing. While most stations ended up on different channels, I found a few that are still broadcasting on the channels originally proposed by MSTV--KNTV in San Jose, for example. In New York City, MSTV had WCBS-TV on Channel 28 and WNBC on Channel 33. As it turned out, WCBS-TV ended up on Channel 33 and WNBC on Channel 28.

Given the history of NAB and MSTV cooperation it seems likely the MSTV Engineering Committee will remain intact after the merger and perhaps add some new members from groups not currently participating.

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.