WASHINGTON—The National Association of Broadcasters today announced a "strategic realignment" to accelerate development and deployment of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS), a groundbreaking public safety and national security initiative made possible by the NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) standard.
The announcement comes two months after NAB announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) awarded the organization a $744,000 contract to advance BPS field testing. BPS is a new technology that was invented and developed by the NAB.
Broadcasters have been promoting the system, which uses NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0 signals to deliver resilient, terrestrial-based timing and location services that can serve as a backup to the Global Positioning System (GPS). This has the potential to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure in the event of a GPS outage, cyberattack or disruption, the organization said. NAB is partnering with Dominion Energy for the contract and the field testing.
NAB Executive Vice President, Technology and Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny and Vice President, Advanced Technology Tariq Mondal, who have led BPS development to date, will move into new roles dedicated exclusively to the initiative.
Matheny will now serve as executive vice president, Broadcast Positioning System, and Mondal as vice president, Broadcast Positioning System. Together, they will work to build a dedicated team focused solely on advancing BPS technology and services, NAB said.
“This work represents a powerful intersection of innovation, public safety and opportunity for broadcasters,” said NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “By investing more resources in BPS, we are accelerating a technology that strengthens national resilience while creating meaningful long-term opportunities for our members.”
As part of the realignment, NAB is also launching a new Industry Affairs and Innovation department, led by Executive Vice President April Carty-Sipp, bringing together NAB’s Industry Affairs and Technology teams under one strategic umbrella. This integration will align member services, innovation, engineering and technology expertise to better address the challenges and opportunities facing broadcasters at the intersection of business and technology.
Additionally, Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology and Executive Director of PILOT John Clark will serve in the newly created role of chief innovation officer and senior vice president of Emerging Technology, where he will lead NAB’s efforts to identify, develop and expand next-generation tools, partnerships and technologies that empower local broadcasters.
“This realignment reflects NAB’s commitment to ensuring broadcasters are positioned to compete, grow and serve their communities in a rapidly changing media landscape,” LeGeyt said. “By streamlining expertise and aligning strategic priorities, we are delivering more responsive, forward-looking support to our members.”
NAB says the new structure will strengthen its ability to advance innovation that supports local journalism, emergency communications, public safety, broadcast engineering and the next generation of broadcast technology, ensuring that broadcasters remain essential to communities across the country.
