As the post-incentive auction spectrum repack winds down and commercial ATSC 3.0 stations sign on, attention is now shifting from implementation to monetization. A forthcoming series of webinars hosted by Sinclair Broadcast Group’s OneMedia 3.0 is designed to explore those financial opportunities, and dig into the business applications of NEXTGEN TV.
New business applications—as well as previously unpublished audience demographic research—will be the focus of the upcoming webinar series on ATSC 3.0.
Business, advertising, transportation, computing, media and technology experts from a variety of industries will participate and take questions in a six-episode, bi-weekly series beginning Tuesday, July 7.
The first session is 90 minutes and is scheduled for 2pm Eastern.
“Imagine a system update that enables unlimited new revenue models rather than just patches,” OneMedia 3.0 says. “This is ATSC 3.0 in a nutshell. Its advanced technology standards transform a TV channel into a flexible, IP-capable data pipe unlike any other implementation in the modern world. As a result, new business applications and insights are taking shape as the 3.0 platform emerges, and deployment strategies are forming around them.”
Datacasting, for example, is a green field for broadcasters. Several datacasting models will be highlighted in the introductory webinar and fleshed out in subsequent episodes, including the ATSC 3.0 elements necessary for creating them, as well as guidance on data management.
“Mobile broadcasting, another characteristic of ATSC 3.0, is about so much more than sending TV signals to phones,” the Sinclair-owned OneMedia 3.0 says. “It is the lynchpin of ATSC 3.0 because it powers the ability to respond to audience specificity. The mobile capability of 3.0 encompasses what’s already inherent in cable-, satellite- and broadband-delivered content, but takes it a step further in terms of refinement, enabling a broadcaster to transmit content, advertisements and emergency alerts according to relevance as well as ratings. This lays the groundwork for reimagining news programming that appeals to younger demographics.”
Josh Gordon, a veteran industry consultant who will be presenting new audience insights, notes, “There’s a big issue in news. Most broadcasters are losing young people. We were trying to figure out what type of information younger people want to know about—sports, general news, etc. Topics covered skewed toward older generations as expected, but we didn’t find out what younger people want to watch… We found a difference in how the different generations want to be impacted by news stories.”
Mark Aitken (pictured), SVP of Advanced Technology at Sinclair Broadcast Group, adds, “The broadcast industry now stands at a threshold of unexplored new business models. This pivot is coinciding with the very type of cultural change and technological adaptation that ATSC 3.0 exemplifies.”
The six webinars are as follows:
Webinar No. 1
“ATSC MONETIZATION 101”
Tuesday, July 7, 2 p.m. EDT
Josh Gordon will be presenting the results of this research over the course of the first two webinars, beginning with a case for a “mobile-first” strategy during “ATSC Monetization 101,” He’ll be joined by Sinclair’s 3.0 architect, Mark Aitken, who will talk about which parts of the standard which support various business models. Also on deck, long-time 3.0 advocates Jerry Fritz of ONE Media who has helmed much of the standard through regulatory waters; and John Hane of BitPath, which is creating a secure, wireless network using broadcast spectrum.
Webinar No. 2
“NEXTGEN NEWS & ALERTING”
Tuesday, July 21, 2 p.m. EDT
Josh Gordon returns with insights into what motivates younger viewers and how local TV news can respond, during “NextGen News.” Rounding out the news focus of “NextGen News” with real-world uses, applications and implementations, is Jim DeChant, VP/Technology at News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting; Lane Michaelsen, Group News Director at Sinclair Broadcast Group; RTDNA Executive Director Dan Shelley.
Fred Baumgartner, director of NextGen TV Implementation for Sinclair’s ONE Media, will be on hand to highlight the advanced emergency alerting capabilities of 3.0, along with Ed Czarnecki, Chairman of the ATSC TGS3-10 Emergency Alert AHG Working Group and Vice Chair of Advanced Emergency Information Implementation.
ATSC 3.0 enables a way for broadcasters to set up a stream for sending evacuation maps, video shots and live emergency information, specifically to those affected. This capability eliminates the problem of “over-alerting,” which conditions viewers to ignore rather than heed emergency information.
Webinar No. 3
“NEXTGEN ADVERTISING”
Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2 p.m. EDT
This webinar will discuss how to build the workflow to do targeted advertising, what those ads will look like, how to interpret and leverage the resulting metrics and how to incorporate targeted ads into a hybrid broadcast advertising model. Creating and managing first-party, audience data will be covered, along with strategies for using third-party, or “intent-to-buy” data.
Join senior advertising and media executives—Rick Ducey, managing director of BIA Kelsey and Harold S. Geller, executive director of Ad-ID, a partnership between the ANA and the 4A’s—along with the nation’s expert on the ATSC 3.0 multidimensional advertising ecosphere, J.W. Linkenauger, VP of Advanced Advertising Support Operations for Sinclair Broadcast Group, for a roadmap on how to create, deploy and leverage NextGen Advertising.
A big picture view will be provided by Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell & Associates.
Webinar No. 4
“DATACASTING”
Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2 p.m. EDT
ATSC 3.0 enables a way to dynamically partition a 6 MHz swath of radio frequency spectrum for transporting multiple, distinct data payloads—over a large geographic area—to many (moving) devices at once, versus the device-specific pathway of cellular networks. This unique capability makes 3.0 datacasting ideal for vehicle software updates, data caching (as a service) and video offload for industrially burdened telcos. This type of datacasting is a completely new playing field for broadcasters, where they can create business models that not only uniquely serve their markets, but also adapt to market evolution. The FCC has started a Rulemaking on ATSC 3.0 TV datacasting referred to as “The Broadcast Internet.”
Michael Bouchard of ONE Media will be joined by Kevin Gage, chief operating officer of Cast.era, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Sinclair, who will speak to telecom applications, while Peter Guglielmino, Chief Technology Officer of Media and Entertainment for IBM, will describe how video-offloading can work. They’ll be joined by Sasha Javid, Chief Operating Officer of datacast network architect BitPath; and Mark O’Brien, President and Chief Technology officer of public-safety network specialist, SpectraRep.
Webinar No. 5
“ENABLING THE BROADCAST INTERNET”
Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2 p.m. EDT
ATSC 3.0 is the new last mile. It creates a spectrum hyper-efficient means of mass, simultaneous data delivery heretofore unavailable. The “broadcast internet” marries 3.0’s last-mile superiority with 5G’s return-path capability, all aggregated and managed virtually through software. The bottom line for broadcasters here is a revenue model that requires nothing more than a data contribution.
Here, veteran engineer Lynn Rowe of One World Technologies will explain his vision of the broadcast internet as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” He’ll be joined by live television production expert Jerry Gepner, Chief Operating Officer of CP Communications, Michael Kaplan, Global Leader for Media & Entertainment & Pro VR, for NVIDIA; Vern Fotheringham, CEO of ARK Multicasting, Inc., Hiren Surti, Director of Product Development at Crown Castle, and Louis Libin, Vice President of Spectrum Engineering & Policy for Sinclair Broadcast Group.
Webinar No. 6
“ATSC 3.0, THE INNOVATOR’s PLATFORM”
Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2 p.m. EDT
Adaptability, or app-licability, is another open frontier with ATSC 3.0, which layers the physical and transport characteristics of broadcast transmission with standard IP technology to create a target-rich development environment. This truly puts broadcasting on par with other data delivery architectures and allows features to be created in the form of apps versus an entirely independent transport configuration. ATSC 3.0 opens broadcast spectrum up to all manner of third-party entrepreneurs as well, allowing developers to not only create platform-specific apps, but compatible devices as well.
Anne Schelle, Executive Director of Pearl TV, will impart the latest developments in ATSC 3.0-compatible consumer devices. Schelle and Pearl TV were instrumental in getting 20+ different ATSC 3.0 TV sets committed to at CES 2020. She will be joined by Sinclair’s Mark Aitken along with Skip Flenniken, Senior Director, Business Development at Sinclair Broadcast Group. IBM’s automotive services expert, George Ayres, will provide an overview of vehicle applications, meanwhile Madeleine Noland, president of ATSC, will share insight on the global and international opportunities unfolding for ATSC 3.0. Rounding out this final webinar is Nick Kelsey, an entrepreneur who developed an ATSC 3.0 device that costs around $100 using a Kickstarter campaign that sought $50,000 but raised $400,000+. Kelsey, Chief Technology Officer and founder of Silicone Dust, will talk about being one of the first ATSC 3.0 entrepreneurs.
Each webinar will last an hour and will be followed by a 30-minute Q&A period.
