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Last week in Washington, D.C., the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) celebrated its 40th anniversary at its annual NextGen Broadcast Conference, with veteran attendees reflecting back to the “Grand Alliance” of broadcasters and consumer electronics companies that formed the original ATSC 1.0 digital television standard and paved the way for HDTV broadcast programming.
But this year’s discussion on the new ATSC 3.0, or NextGen TV, standard only touched briefly on the improvements in linear programming that 3.0 enables, such as high dynamic range (HDR), 4K, enhanced audio and interactive applications. Instead, much of the conference focused on alternative uses of the broadcast spectrum such as datacasting and position, navigation and timing (PNT) applications, possibly in combination with wireless carriers’ existing 5G services. Most of these proposed data applications would be offered as business-to-business (B2B) services.
New Datacasting Venture Formed
Some concrete datacasting news came on the first day of the conference, with big LPTV player ARK Multicasting and tech firm Gaian Solutions announcing a joint venture to create a “Broadcast Internet Network” covering 30% of the U.S. The datacasting network will deliver a variety of applications through ARK’s 300 stations including IoT management, “smart city” services and digital signage, the companies said.
“We are shopping for partners in other markets, as the potential for growth and reach is tremendous, and the opportunity for all television broadcasters who partner is unmatched by existing models” said Joshua Weiss, CEO of