At the 2018 NAB Show New York, executives from Fox Television Stations; NBC and Telemundo Owned Stations Group; Univision; TEGNA (for Pearl TV), and Nexstar Media Group (for SpectrumCo) announced their collaborative effort and support for the introduction of next-generation broadcast TV standard ATSC 3.0.
The standard is expected to be broadly launched by individual broadcasters beginning in 2020, concurrent with the anticipated introduction of correctly equipped consumer TV products.
This new effort is not exclusive and will include other broadcasters with interests in next-gen TV services, including both other commercial and public TV broadcasters.
“One big challenge was whether the big owners of valuable spectrum could work together, commit resources, and stick to the game plan. Done, done and done,”
said Jack Abernethy, CEO at Fox Television Stations.
The Phoenix Model Market pilot project launched nearly one year ago and the pilot project has offered testing for broadcast equipment implementation, new services, and technology offerings to show how the ATSC 3.0 standard could be deployed by broadcasters while maintaining existing digital service for viewers. The Phoenix DMA is home to more than 1.8 million households with more than one in five viewers relying on over-the-air reception. Participating TV groups and stations in the Phoenix Model Market include: Arizona State University’s Arizona PBS (KAET) , Arizona Television’s KAZT Channel 7 (Independent), E.W. Scripps’ KNXV (ABC), Fox Television Stations’ KSAZ (Fox) and KUTP (MyTV), Meredith’s KPHO (CBS) and KTVK (Independent), Nexstar Media Group’s KASW (CW); Telemundo Station Group’s KTAZ (Telemundo), TEGNA’s KPNX (NBC), and Univision’s KFPH-CD (UniMas) and KTVW (Univision).
Dr. Jong Kim, senior vice president in the office of the CTO at LG Electronics, which co-developed ATSC 3.0, the new TV standard that marries broadcast and broadband for the first time, said:
“We see this major development jump starting the nationwide rollout of Next Gen TV. LG looks forward to working with these and other broadcasters and stakeholders in the Next Gen TV ecosystem to help bring the benefits of ATSC 3.0 to American consumers”.
LG is already shipping ATSC 3.0 TVs in Korea and the company’s US Zenith R&D subsidiary has been a significant developer of the technology.
Example protocol stack model for ATSC 3.0
