A second transmission facility for what’s now being formally branded as NEXTGEN TV broadcasts in the Phoenix Model Market has been given the green light.
By year’s end, this additional station will power a Single Frequency Network (SFN) – the first market to have two transmission towers with a SFN configuration — once the transmission licenses are approved by the FCC and the facilities are on-air.
Word of the second transmission facility came Monday from both the Phoenix Model Market partners and Pearl TV, the ATSC 3.0 partnership that includes The E.W. Scripps Co., which is building out the NEXTGEN TV property.
Other Pearl TV members include Cox Media Group, Graham Media Group, Hearst Television, Meredith’s Local Media Group, Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television and TEGNA.
NEXTGEN TV transmission facility No. 2 is to be hosted by Scripps’ home for The CW Network in Phoenix, KASW-61, Scripps President of Local Media Brian Lawlor said. It is co-owned with ABC affiliate KNXV-15.
Pearl TV Lead Technical Engineer Dave Folsom added, “The KASW TV facility will provide one node (of a total of four total transmission locations) that will cover the Phoenix market with a very robust over-the-air signal using a Single Frequency Network. This new technology provides a means by which NEXTGEN TV can be transmitted on the same frequency at different locations throughout a local coverage area, thus increasing the signal strength to the viewer. The unique technology of NEXTGEN TV enables this capability for television broadcasters.”
COMMON ‘APPLICATION FRAMEWORK’ ON DISPLAY IN NYC
The Phoenix announcements comes as NAB Show New York opens Wednesday (10/16) at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. There, a common “application framework” will be shown publicly for the first time.
Prototype TV receivers will demonstrate how the user experience will likely look on various brands of consumer NEXTGEN TV sets.
Phoenix Model Market and Pearl TV will be showcasing the new framework incubated in Phoenix as well as prototype NEXTGEN TV receivers in the ATSC booth at N1055 on the NAB Show NY exhibit floor.
The initial launch of NEXTGEN TV will feature a new interactive menu available for viewing live over-the-air TV and will feature weather updates and locally generated video-on-demand functionality.
“We know that broadcasters will want to present their own station’s identity on the NEXTGEN TV platform, just as they do today on their own websites,” said Anne Schelle, Pearl TV’s Managing Director. “Additional features such as in-programming interactivity and local streaming content could also be delivered by each station, depending on their capabilities and technical roadmap.”
Meanwhile, engineers who have worked on the Phoenix Model Market project over the past year have produced a roughly 100-page “Host Station Manual” designed to help the stations soon to be launching NEXTGEN TV in the Top 40 largest TV markets across the country.
“We know that it will take a tremendous amount of cooperation to launch NEXTGEN TV services powered by ATSC 3.0 while at the same time maintaining ATSC 1.0 channels that are today watched by viewers,” Schelle said.
Both the Host Station Manual and the explanatory Channel Sharing video are available for free download from the “Resources” tab on either www.PhoenixNextGenTV.com or www.PearlTV.com.
