Year in review, Part III

Tracking TV's Top Tech Trends Of 2010

An old idea — centralcasting — became new again. Mobile DTV made strides on its way to becoming reality. Digital conversion growing pains for VHF stations continued as they scrambled to restore their previous coverage areas and the FCC began studying how to improve the band. More newscasts were upgraded to high-def and stations expanded newsrooms into 24/7 multiplatform operations. After years as a curiosity, BXF, the standard for integrating traffic and master control, finally looks as if it's on the way to increasing TV station efficiency.
TVNewsCheck,

Centralcasting may be an idea whose time has come — again.

As broadcast management continued its drive for greater and greater efficiency in 2010, some broadcast technologists were looking at ways of operating multiple stations or systems within stations from a common remote hub.

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In doing so, they were dusting off some ideas that had quite a bit of currency several years ago, but may have been a little ahead of the technology.

In the vanguard of the renewed interest in centralcasting this year were automation companies like Florical and Omnibus (soon to be Miranda iTX) and broadcasters like ABC and Fox.

With the aid of Omnibus and a hub at its KSFN Fresno, Calif., ABC began distributing and operating its Live Well diginet across the ABC O&Os and several Belo stations.

“It’s working very nicely, but we are still figuring out what we can do and can’t do in a call letter station environment,” said Dave Converse, VP of engineering. “It’s fair to say we are experimenting with it and haven’t decided how far we are going.”

Mobile DTV

Mobile DTV, a broadcasting-based mobile video service, edged closer to reality in 2010 as TV station groups organized into two complementary consortia to bring the service to the public next year.

At the NAB Show, three networks — NBC, Fox, Ion — and nine major station groups announced the formation of Media Content Venture. Erik Moreno, of Fox, and Salil Dalvi, of NBCU, were selected to run it as co-general managers.

Last month, Moreno and Dalvi promised that MCV members would offer at least two ad-supported mobile channels in at least 20 top markets by the end of 2011.

According to industry sources, the promised two channels will be simulcasts of the regular broadcast days of Fox and NBC O&Os and affiliates. But MCV can’t announce that until copyright issues have been settled, they said.

MCV has also indicated that it is ready to work with the Mobile500 Alliance, a coalition of smaller station groups not part of MCV. Together, MCV and the Mobile500 could blanket the nation with a mobile DTV service.

Yet a third broadcaster-run entity trying to bring mobile DTV to fruition is the Open Mobile Video Coalition. For much of the past summer and fall, it ran an extensive consumer trial on mobile DTV in Washington involving nine stations and 23 channels.

Coalition representatives say the results were positive and promise a full report at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.

Aware that the mobile DTV signal from a single transmitter and tall tower will not provide blanket coverage, particularly in urban areas, broadcasters have been experimenting with single-frequency repeaters or “gap fillers” in distributed transmission systems.

"DTS is just going to be required [for mobile DTV]," says David Neff, president of Axcera, a Pittsburgh-based transmitter manufacturer. "It's not going to work any other way."

This summer and fall, broadcasters overlaid the Washington consumer trial with a technical test of a single-frequency repeater or gap-filler.

According to Sterling Davis, chairman of the OMVC Technical Advisory Group, the results are still being evaluated, but preliminarly indications are that such repeaters can do the job. “I’m cautiously optimistic,” Davis said.

A fairly new technology, single-frequency repeaters operate on the same channels as their main stations, raising the possibility of distributed networks of many repeaters.

Digital Broadcasting

A year after the transition to digital and the discovery that VHF stations didn’t perform well in digital, VHF broadcasters were doing what they could to improve coverage. Some were able to get more power from the FCC. Others were able to secure UHF channels. That was WCPO Cincinnati’s solution. On Dec. 8, the Scripps’ outlet made the move from ch. 10 to ch. 22 after a 10-day “Plan to Scan” promotion.

Hoping to free up broadcast spectrum for wireless broadband use by pushing more stations into VHF, the FCC in a Nov. 30 rulemaking began looking for ways of making the band more hospitable for broadcasting. It proposed increasing VHF power and asked for new ideas for improving the band.

Broadcasters fortunate enough to be in the UHF band found themselves in the middle of an over-the-air renaissance. A New York Times story said consumers had rediscovered the wonders of OTA TV and saw it as a low-cost (no-cost?) alternative to basic cable. After being out for 40 years, rabbit ears were in again, particularly among young techy types.

In an interview with TVNewsCheck, antenna manufacturer Richard Schneider estimated that the total market for antennas has grown to between 4.5 million and 6 million a year. And he said he believes there is plenty of room for growth since 80% of population doesn’t even know you can get brilliant HD pictures off air.

HD News

The roll out of local HD news, which slowed in 2008 and 2009 as broadcasters tried not to spend money, began accelerating again this year.

Continued on page 2…
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