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While focused on the future, ATSC’s annual “NextGen Broadcast Conference” in Washington, D.C., last week felt a bit like a step back in time. Much of the conversation about the ATSC 3.0 — or NextGen TV — digital television standard centered on the same topics highlighted in the 2023 and 2024 editions: the big — and as yet unrealized — revenue potential of 3.0 signals to deliver new datacasting services; the public safety benefits that could be afforded by 3.0, in both the form of advanced emergency alerts and as a terrestrial alternative to the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS); and the pressing need for a government-mandated “date certain” by which stations will fully transition to 3.0 and turn off their legacy 1.0 signals.
The lack of movement on that third topic, the 1.0 shutoff date, means that 3.0 broadcasters are still hamstrung by a lack of available spectrum to launch new businesses outside of their legacy linear TV programming. And with a number of markets still not up with 3.0 transmitters, they also don’t yet have the nationwide scale to support an essential service like the proposed Broadcast Positioning System (BPS), which would use 3.0 signals across the country as a reference to generate accurate Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) information that could replace the GPS system in case of a GPS failure or hacking.
The slowed 3.0 rollout in the U.S. explained the lack of big news last week, though the NextGen conference did feature a fiery speech