Sinclair Plans ‘Full-Blown’ ATSC 3.0 Demonstration at CES, CEO Says
Sinclair plans a “full-blown demonstration” of ATSC 3.0 at January CES and “even a larger demonstration” at the NAB Show in April, now that the core elements of ATSC 3.0's physical transmission layer have been elevated to candidate standard status (see 1509290029), CEO David Smith said on a Wednesday earnings call. That the ATSC reached that milestone “now clears the way” for the FCC “to consider and adopt new rules to allow television broadcasters to better compete with other forms of media, telecom and technology companies in providing consumers a more robust and efficient delivery pipeline,” Smith said Wednesday in a statement accompanying Sinclair’s release of its Q3 financial results.
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The single frequency network (SFN) that Sinclair's One Media set up under special temporary authority from the FCC to test ATSC 3.0 on channel 43 in the Baltimore and Washington markets (see 1509040046) is the first of its kind in the country, Smith said on the call. That SFN represents “a really serious, large-scale, long-term business development opportunity” on ATSC 3.0, Smith said. The SFN is part of the ATSC 3.0 development work that Sinclair is undertaking as part of a memorandum of understanding signed with Samsung and Pearl TV in June (see 1506170046).
Sinclair is “very happy” that ATSC 3.0's physical transmission layer “is now through the window, if you will, of the ATSC political process and technical process,” Smith said when asked what the next steps in the ATSC 3.0 process will be. “What happens now is the industry sometime in the new year will get behind the standard and approach the FCC and say, ‘We’re ready to make a change,’ and start that process. So I think over the next six to eight months, you’re going to see some, probably some, rapid movement.” With that will come “a much clearer understanding in terms of what the capability of the platform is going to be, and people will start talking about business models of one thing or another,” he said. “So it’s all good.” At ATSC, "we share Mr. Smith’s enthusiasm, but leave it to broadcasters to determine how and when to approach the FCC to modify their rules to allow broadcasters to use ATSC 3.0,” ATSC President Mark Richer emailed us Wednesday.
Having disclosed last quarter that Sinclair sees opportunities to reap $2 billion in proceeds by relinquishing licenses in the incentive auction with a minimal hit to its broadcast cash flow, “we’re not updating any of the numbers that we previously talked about as it relates to the auction,” Chief Financial Officer Christopher Ripley said in Q&A on the call. Since making those statements in early August, Sinclair has hired spectrum “advisers” nationally and assembled “an auction team running 24/7,” Ripley said. The team is “talking to multiple parties on channel-shares so we can optimize our outcome” in the auction, he said.
But with so many “unknowns” about the auction, “for us to give you any more guidance on the auction I think is probably not prudent at this time,” Ripley said. However, Sinclair is “in place to participate” in the auction, “and optimize our spectrum portfolio, versus our future ATSC 3.0 data opportunities,” he said. “When you look at the opportunities available to Sinclair, given the breadth of our portfolio over 81 markets now, and the number of multi-station markets that we have, that affords us, I think, an incredible opportunity to participate here and do well.”