ATSC signed an agreement March 2 with the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) as the first step toward deploying ATSC 3.0 broadcast services to mobile devices in India, said the groups Monday. ATSC President Madeleine Noland traveled in fall 2019 to the India Mobile Congress in New Delhi as a guest of the TSDSI, which participates in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project standardization body for 5G. She spoke about 3.0 and 5G “convergence” in India (see 1910110030). “They have 1.2 billion cellphones, so there are opportunities there that are unique,” said Noland then.
FCC rules clarifying how ancillary service fees apply to broadcasters using ATSC 3.0 datacasting (see 2102230068) took effect Thursday, said a Media Bureau public notice.
ATSC's annual NextGen Broadcast Conference is to return as a physical event Aug. 25-26 in Washington after going all-virtual in 2020. A spokesperson said Wednesday that ATSC will continue monitoring conditions on the ground in determining whether plans to hold the physical conference that way. Many other groups we surveyed plan in-person events later this year; see our report here.
FM broadcasters offering geotargeted content have every incentive to reduce self-interference and are required by the FCC to do so, said GeoBroadcast Solutions in replies posted Friday in docket 20-401. REC Networks replied earlier (see 2103100057). GBS, the primary proponent of such proposed changes to booster rules, resisted arguments this would lead to radio advertising “redlining.” All other media can geotarget ads, and those were an ATSC 3.0 selling point, GBS said. “Yet there was no mention of redlining in the hundreds and hundreds of pages of comments filed in that proceeding by the broadcast industry and its trade association.” The Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters called for a pilot program to test the technology in three markets. They "recommend that the pilot be designed to address all of the questions raised in the comment round of this proceeding, including the impact of the technology on local advertising markets." The FCC simply can't "ignore the concerns of the radio industry,” said the New York State Broadcasters Association, opposing the rule change. “Objectionable interference is certain under the Geo proposal,” said broadcast engineer Alan Kirschner of Nashville. Ad agency Media Negotiator, Urban One DJ and restaurant owner Sam Sylks and Roberts Broadcasting supported the option to geotarget as helpful to radio and local businesses. GBS said it has “no plans” for such targeting of emergency alert system messages, though the company and proponents of the tech have touted targeted alerts (see 2006040024).
Ark Multicasting wants FCC permission to modify its construction permits to build a single ATSC 3.0 transmitter and convert to a license before the permits expire in July, though rules authorizing distributed transmission system technology Ark wants to use haven’t been published in the Federal Register, said a filing posted in docket 20-145 Friday. Tuesday, CEO Joshua Weiss spoke Media Bureau Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman. Ark wants the agency to authorize the license and let company have its full DTS plans and construction approved later through a minor modification request. The FCC says “it seeks to avoid forcing” low-power TV stations “from making significant expenditures in new ATSC 1.0 facilities by July 13, 2021 only to later be faced with a further expenditure of resources if the station chooses to convert those facilities to ATSC 3.0,” Ark said.
Broadcasters aren’t back to their pre-pandemic financial states, but they see improvements on the horizon, said Cumulus, Sinclair, Nexstar and Graham Holdings in quarterly reports and calls this week. CEO Perry Sook said Nexstar has enough certainty about its outlook to reinstate guidance for upcoming quarters, conceding that broadcasters aren't out of the woods. “We don’t anticipate being back above 2019 levels” in advertising revenue in the next year, Sook said. Nexstar will be “still retracing our steps” and recovering in 2022, he said.
The FCC broadcast internet proceeding clarifying rules for datacasting with ATSC 3.0 takes effect March 25, said Tuesday's Federal Register. The order, which affects how broadcaster ancillary fees are calculated, was approved 5-0 in December (see 2012100071).
Public TV received its largest government investment in 2020, and America’s Public Television Stations will press for “at least” $50 million increases in each of the next two budget cycles. That's the “most dramatic increase in history.” So said President Patrick Butler Monday at APTS’ virtual summit.
The ATSC 3.0 Evoca TV service in Boise has been “exercising flash channels a fair amount in our system” since debuting in September (see 2011010001), CEO Todd Achilles told the virtual Streaming Media 2021 Connect conference Thursday. “We set up a flash 4K channel for a sporting event, and we’re actually standing up a flash channel today for the Mars rover landing.” It landed around 4 p.m. EST. The channel capability is in the 3.0 suite to “spin up an extra channel” over-the-air “on demand and dynamically, and spin it down again,” said ATSC President Madeleine Noland: “A flash channel is a channel that pops up for a particular purpose and comes back down again.” Such protocols are in ATSC’s A/351 recommended practice document for 3.0 signaling, delivery and synchronization techniques, said Noland through a spokesperson. An app per the A/344 standards on 3.0 interactive content is used, she said. Achilles thinks 3.0 is superior to 5G for content delivery into the home. “There’s lots of conversations” about how 5G will become “the new technology to deliver video into the home,” he said. “When you look at the numbers on that, it’s still a really expensive way to deliver bits to a stationary end user.”
Tests show ATSC 3.0 “can provide robust reception of data at all vehicular speeds,” concluded a paper by Sony engineers Luke Fay, Graham Clift and Fred Ansfield. “This field test shows that broadcasters can transmit both high throughput stationary services as well as robust automotive services simultaneously to target a diverse set of receiving devices,” it said. “Delivery of data of any kind (infotainment, software updates, navigation maps, etc.) is robust and reliable.” Automotive field tests Sony conducted in the fall with Pearl TV in Phoenix and News Press & Gazette in Santa Barbara, California, found NextGenTV can be a viable broadcast service for delivery of “robust passenger infotainment” to vehicles and “easily transmit software updates and information to fleets" of vehicles, the company said Wednesday. Prototype Android and Sony devices were involved.