Someone You Should Know: Marc Hand

Posted on December 10, 2024 in ATSC News

Marc Hand is both CEO and Founder of Public Media Venture Group (PMVG) and also CEO of Media Management/Public Media Management (PMM).  He stays actively involved with ATSC because of its role with public TV broadcasters.

“The emergence of ATSC 3.0 was one of the key reasons for founding PMVG. In 2016, we held a series of meetings with public television station leaders that focused on the potential of ATSC 3.0. We collectively saw 3.0 as a transformative platform that both aligns with the service mission of public television and has the potential to bring new sources of revenue into the industry,” Hand says.

He stays busy with his growing family when not leading the PMVG flock.

“I’m lucky to have three amazing adult children—Ben, Joe, and Maddie—and four precious grandchildren, all under four years old. Even though they’re spread out across Southern California, Oregon, and Denver, I make the effort to spend as much time with them as possible. There’s something truly special about watching your children become parents, and I love hanging out with them and the grandkids!

“I’m also happy to share my home with three English labs, Bailey, Buddy and Lucy. They are a family—a mother and her two six-year-old pups. I’ve had labs for most of my adult life, so I’m spoiled by the always-happy disposition of labs! We love taking end-of-the-workday walks together in the beautiful vineyards near my Northern California home.

“I’m on the boards of several nonprofits, including the National Trust for Local News and the Kitchen Sisters (a public radio production entity), and am involved locally with a few other media nonprofits.”

“Since PMVG’s incorporation in 2017, we have worked to support the transition of our member stations to ATSC 3.0 in markets around the country and are actively involved in building use cases on the ATSC 3.0 platform with a specific focus on local community services. PMVG also launched two of our own LPTV stations and converted them to ATSC 3.0 with the goal of using them as demonstration sites for ATSC 3.0 applications. We’re working with a range of companies to implement these applications for local use, and have broadened our work to include other national-scale technologies that can support the needs of local public stations. PMVG is also actively working with commercial broadcasters on 3.0 market transitions, data distribution, and other initiatives to leverage the capacities offered by ATSC 3.0.”

Hand says there is tremendous potential for ATSC 3.0 for public broadcasters.

“ATSC 3.0 will enable local public stations to offer more content, while at the same time providing the opportunity to generate new sources of revenue. Public stations have always played an important role in emergency alerting, education, and other specialized services in their local communities; with ATSC 3.0, they will also have the opportunity to generate new sources of revenue through data distribution. More broadly, the potential of using ATSC 3.0 to provide a terrestrial back-up to the GPS system is very compelling; it aligns with public media’s mission and public television’s wide reach, which covers 98% of the U.S. population.

Hand says he is a frequent traveler and enjoys listening to audio books. “I just finished the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and started Lifespan, an interesting book by David Sinclair. I’ve also just started the new season of Diplomat and am a daily listener of my local public station, KQED!”

Posted in ATSC News