NBC ‘Investigating’ Plans to Carry 2018 Super Bowl in 4K, Says Chairman Lazarus

“It helps,” Lazarus said when asked if NBC was seeking a sponsor to help subsidize the costs of producing the Super Bowl in 4K. Televising the Super Bowl “is such a big production already, “ he said: “The added equipment, the added trucks, the camera positions alone, make it complicated” to produce the game in 4K.

“Add to that” is the fact that U.S. Bank Stadium, though "a beautiful new stadium," is "relatively small in the scheme of what an NFL stadium is these days,” Lazarus said. “It’s not as big as many of the other venues. So there would be some worry about if we could actually do it full-bore because of just the availability of space” for camera positions and added production equipment, he said. The Minnesota Vikings website lists the stadium’s capacity at 65,000 seats for regular NFL games, but as “expandable” to 73,000 seats for the Super Bowl. By comparison, the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field seats just over 81,000, said the team’s media guide.

NBC has been “doing some 4K across some of our other sports properties,” said Lazarus. “We are looking at the Super Bowl and we will be implementing 4K across certain venues.” The network also anticipates doing “one show per day” in 4K for the February Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, and will do so “in conjunction” with Olympic Broadcasting Services, the “host” Olympics broadcaster for all the world, he said. “A lot of that is funded by the MVPDs at this point, whether it’s DirecTV, which last year funded our Notre Dame football 4K, or Comcast, who will fund some of the Olympic 4K,” said Lazarus. “They are funding it, and they believe it’s a value-add for their customers.”

In Japan, “they’re sort of skipping 4K and going right to 8K,” said Lazarus of NHK plans to broadcast in 8K Super Hi-Vision the July 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which NBC will have the U.S. rights to carry. “We have to decide, if it’s going that fast,” whether NBC should make a “pit stop” and embrace “good, old-fashioned 4K, or whether we should just go straight to 8K,” said Lazarus.

A time may come when the NFL insists TV broadcast partners carry games in higher resolutions than they do today, but “we’ve never had that discussion” with the league, said Lazarus. “There’s not that many people who can receive things in 4K." CTA researchers estimate that nearly 36 million 4K TVs will have shipped in the U.S. through the end of 2017.

NBC “went into HD fairly quickly and aggressively,” said Lazarus. “We took a wait-and-see attitude with 3D, and I’m glad we did, because it wasn’t going to work. You don’t want to watch a game, and it takes away from the communal experience, if you’re wearing glasses or really what looks like a welder’s helmet. It’s just not a very good experience. We are interested in leading in technology, and Comcast, I think, will be part of that solution for our company and for their customers.”

NAB Show New York Notebook

The ATSC 3.0 “baby is about to be born,” said Jerald Fritz, One Media executive vice president-strategic and legal affairs, of the FCC’s likely plans to approve a final report and order soon authorizing 3.0 voluntary deployment (see 1710170048). “We are hopeful for a 5-0 vote to move our platform from the plateau it’s on to an incredibly upside potential.” Once rules are approved, they’ll become effective when published in the Federal Register, he said. Broadcasters then “would have the right to deploy” 3.0, but “no broadcaster is waiting for that,” he said. “Once the rules are approved, equipment will be purchased, and it will be 3.0-capable.”

“Think of 2018, very early ‘19, as the timeframe of the test markets” in which “core” 3.0 TV services like 4K and high dynamic range would debut, said Sandhi Kozsuch, principal-strategic and industry initiatives, Cox Media Group, and chairman of the Pearl TV consortium. Kozsuch sees 2020 as the year for the “kick-in of the afterburners” in terms of full-scale 3.0 adoption, he said. Core TV services and targeted advertising “are the first two things we need to focus on and get launched to the consumer,” he said. The “next wave” of 3.0 introductions would be to “automobiles and mobility,” he said.

The Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance believes that “advanced alerting is one of the keys to getting ATSC 3.0 signals onto mobile devices,” said Executive Director John Lawson. “We’re not asking for a mandate, but we believe we can drive consumer demand.” The alliance “will continue our advocacy of a voluntary approach to alerting,” but the “bottom line” is that “a voluntary system needs volunteers,” he said. “We’re proud of what we have, but we need other networks, broadcasters, device makers, investors and others who are part of this ecosystem to step up and support us.”