President’s Memo The Big Apple Lights Up!

Posted on October 22, 2023 in ATSC News

Start spreading the news…the #1 market in the U.S., New York City, went live with ATSC 3.0/NEXTGEN TV on Monday, October 16!

Six television stations are now broadcasting with ATSC 3.0/NEXTGEN TV services. Public television’s WLIW, owned by The WNET Group, led the transition as the first full-power ATSC 3.0 station in the market. In addition to WLIW (PBS), audiences can receive CBS’s WCBS (CBS), WNET’s WMBQ-CD (First Nations Experience), Comcast/NBC’s WNBC (NBC), WNET (PBS) and Comcast/NBC’s WNJU (Telemundo) on their NEXTGEN TV devices. This now brings coverage to 70% of the U.S. market with NYC alone having a population of over 7.7 million TV households, according to the 2023 Nielsen DMA Rankings. A big congratulations to all who made this possible!

We are thrilled that we have now seen ten U.S. deployments in 2023 in several top 15 markets. As we look into 2024, the focus will be on adding more transmitters in markets that have already launched NEXTGEN TV, equating to more channels and more content on the air. Minneapolis PBS is gearing up to launch their own NEXTGEN TV transmitter following in the steps of several stations that turned on ATSC 3.0 services in Minneapolis on August 14, 2023. There is also news coming out Miami for a December launch of an additional NEXTGEN TV station.

In last month’s newsletter, I recapped my summer global travels, advancing the message and deployments of ATSC 3.0. I’d like to take a moment to reflect back on the 2023 IBC Show and recognize ATSC members who won TV Tech’s Best of Show Awards. They were recognized for innovation, feature set, cost efficiency, and performance in serving the Media & Entertainment industry. Congratulations to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the Elemental MediaConnect Gateway, Cobalt Digital for their Pacific ULL-DEC Ultra-Low Latency 4K Decoder, and Telos Alliance for Telos Infinity VIP.

The semi-annual meetings of ITU-R Study Group 6, Working Party 6A (SG6, WP6A)concluded in Geneva, Switzerland this past September, with several ATSC 3.0 proposals accepted and approved by SG6, to be incorporated into upcoming Reports and Recommendations of ITU-R.

The proposals were brought to ITU-R by ATSC members Aldo Cugnini, consultant to ONE Media 3.0, and Louis Libin, Sinclair Broadcast, as part of the U.S. delegation. Aldo and Louis are Chair and Vice-Chair of the ATSC Expert Group on ITU, a subgroup of ATSC Planning Team 6, Global Recognition of ATSC 3.0.
Various proposals to WP6A by ETRI were also submitted jointly by Korea and the U.S. delegation, including a Preliminary Draft New Report Analyzing ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast. Based on inputs from the international WP6A attendees at-large, the analysis is anticipated to become part of a more widely encompassing Collection of field trials of Terrestrial Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting systems.

Korea and the U.S. were also invited to contribute further information on their ongoing laboratory and field tests toward the ITU-R Recommendations on DTTB System Selection Guidelines. Three earlier proposals were published by ITU-R in the months before the WP6 meetings, bringing the total number of documents published with ATSC 3.0 elements to seventeen. WP6A also approved the continuation of its Rapporteur Group on Revision of ITU-R Texts to include ATSC 3.0 to be continued for the ITU-R study cycle 2024-2027.

In the most recent ATSC Board meeting, the board unanimously approved the creation of Implementation Team 8 – Automotive (IT8) at the recommendation of Planning Team 5 – Automotive (PT5). Planning Teams are typically formed to study a particular topic and create reports or recommendations. Implementation Teams offer a forum for team members to get “hands-on” with the technology. PT5 concluded that the automotive vertical presented a good opportunity for broadcasters using ATSC 3.0, and that next steps would best be done under an I-Team structure. Please join me in welcoming Mark Barrington, OneMedia, as the new Chair of this Implementation Team.

IT8 will assess opportunities and challenges related to delivery of ATSC 3.0 services (including video, audio, and other data) to vehicles. It will consider technical and market requirements for both B2B and B2C applications including but not limited to robust broadcast updates for telematics and navigation, sensors for autonomous vehicles, and in-car infotainment systems, along with infotainment content. Considering the evolving media landscape particularly related to automotive applications, IT8 will also evaluate ATSC 3.0’s capabilities versus those of complementary technologies, such as 5G/DSRC. The Implementation Team will report its findings and recommendations to the ATSC Board of Directors. For information about joining IT8, please visit the ATSC website.

I was excited to hear from one of our ATSC members who was walking through Costco in Tucson, Arizona and came across Samsung TVs with the NEXTGEN TV logo prominently displayed! The deployment and development of ATSC 3.0 is a marathon and not a sprint. The standard was unveiled for the Korean market in 2017 and the US market at CES 2018. The fact that we are already reaching 70% of U.S. audiences and 80% of South Korean audiences along with deployments in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and more countries coming, is a testament to the hard work of ATSC members, our partner organizations, and the industry writ large. We ARE doing it, and everyone should be very proud of how much progress has been made in a short amount of time.

To all who continue their efforts utilizing the best-in-class terrestrial broadcast technology, we thank you!

Madeleine
ATSC President

Posted in ATSC News