Station Groups’ ATSC 3.0 Commitment Solves ‘Chicken-and-Egg Problem,’ Says Fox

Fox, NBC, Pearl TV, SpectrumCo, Telemundo and Univision “are on track to enable services that will support the introduction of ATSC 3.0-equipped television receivers beginning in 2020,” said Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle, who others onstage credited with pulling the collaboration together. Accompanying the announcement were statements of support from TV set makers LG, Samsung and Sony hailing the breakthrough for its potential to hasten the 3.0 commercial opportunity.

All the partners “invite the industry to listen to what gets said on this stage today to see the future and to be part of it,” said Schelle. “Unlike the transition of a decade ago from analog to digital,” no vacant channels are available for this migration, nor will there be a federally funded converter-box coupon program, she said. “Instead, broadcasters who are interested in creating a new IP broadcast network must work together.”

“What’s news today is the fact that we’re all working together, that we’ve got a game plan that we’re going to stick to, and we’re putting resources behind it," said Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy. "That’s big, and I think we’ve pretty much solved the chicken-and-egg problem we’ve been talking about for the last couple of years.” Abernethy at the same event two years ago described himself as a 3.0 skeptic, rating the next-gen TV technology a 10, but grading it a 5 for its uncertain business model (see 1611100032).

Abernethy seemed to revisit that theme Wednesday when he said on a later CEO panel that 3.0 may not be monetized until well into the future, but that he now thinks that would be fine. He also questioned whether broadcasters even need a 3.0 business plan “today.” That industry doesn't yet know the best business case for the new standard “is in no way a bad thing,” Abernathy said. “The highest, best use may not be something we're thinking about,” said Nexstar CEO Perry Sook on the same panel. Using 3.0 to allow broadcasters to provide broadband spectrum as consortium SpectrumCo plans could be one of the fastest avenues to a return on broadcasters' 3.0 investments, he said.

TV broadcasters need to be “part of the future,” and 3.0 “will make the industry part of the future,” said Valari Staab, president of NBCUniversal-owned TV stations, which includes Telemundo. “It’s a good standard that all of us know we have to move to.”

With 3.0, "it’s long overdue that we need to be on an advanced internet protocol,” said Dave Lougee, CEO of Pearl member Tegna. Lougee likes to think of 3.0 as a “platform,” much like that of the iPhone, he said. “Like Apple, we own this distribution system. As fast as things are moving, I’m not sure the winning business model has been thought up yet today, but a lot of other money and innovators will go against producing winning business models against this platform, and I'm 100 percent confident of that.”

Schelle doesn’t “remember a time” when so many major broadcast heads banded together on stage to assert their “intent to introduce ATSC 3.0 in a public way like this,” she told us. Of names missing from Wednesday’s announcement, Schelle said “we work closely with both CBS and ABC,” mainly through their affiliates, some participating in the Pearl-led 3.0 model market project in Phoenix. Both networks have been involved heavily in the 3.0 “standardization process,” she said. Both had advance notice of the announcement, she said. Neither commented.

Of Abernethy’s two-year turnaround to a believer from a skeptic, “there were a lot of unknowns back then,” said Schelle. “We didn’t have the rules from the FCC two years ago, we didn’t have the standard completed, and we certainly weren’t in market” through the Phoenix pilot project and the SpectrumCo market test in Dallas, she said. “Things are becoming more clear now in terms of deployment and the performance.”

TV brands in addition to LG, Samsung and Sony have approached Pearl with similar offers of 3.0 support, said Schelle, but none that she could disclose, except to say they do include the “Chinese brands.” LG, Samsung and Sony are “out front" with 3.0, "but you’re clearly going to see fast followers right behind them,” she said. “That tends to be how the TV ecosystem plays out.”

Sony Electronics President Mike Fasulo said in the statement that “we are very excited to be working with other visionary companies to trial and launch ATSC 3.0 consumer experiences using 4K High Dynamic Range images and immersive sound.” There’s a “high level” of consumer interest in “live linear 4K,” a finding borne out in the research Pearl did in Phoenix, said Schelle. “Both audio and video quality tested high in our testbed testing.” HDR also is “an important component” that’s going to be “talked about more in conjunction with 4K because it adds that tremendous sparkle to the picture,” she said.