ATSC BOARD Elects New Members

Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee elected four industry executives to serve on the its board of directors for three-year terms that begin in January 2019.

Anne Schelle, Pearl TV, was re-elected to the board. Newly-elected directors are Jim DeChant, News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting; Ira Goldstone, Fox; and Dave Siegler, Cox Media Group.
Board members whose terms expire at the end of 2018: Brett Jenkins,  Nexstar Media Group;  Richard Friedel, Fox; Glenn Reitmeier, NBC Universal; and Wayne Luplow, who represents the IEEE on the board this year. Friedel’s term as ATSC Board Chairman also expires at year-end. The board will elect its 2019 chairman at its first meeting of the new year.

Current board members whose terms continue in 2019 are: Lynn Claudy, National Association of Broadcasters; Mark Corl, Triveni Digital; Jon Fairhurst, Samsung; Dr. Paul Hearty, Sony Electronics; Dr. Jong Kim, LG Electronics; Brian Markwalter, Consumer Technology Association; Thomas Bause Mason, Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers; Andy Scott, NCTA – The Internet and Television Association; and Craig Todd, Dolby. Additionally, Dr. Yian Wu, Communications Research Centre, has been appointed to the 2019 ATSC board by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

“The ATSC is fortunate to have a talented, experienced and engaged board of directors, which drives our overarching strategy,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. “This is especially critical as the ATSC and its members continue to develop and update standards and support the implementation of Next Gen TV powered by ATSC 3.0.”

The four members:

Jim DeChant, VP of technology, News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting, has more than 35 years in the television industry. Throughout his career, has focused on utilizing best of class technologies to develop content creation and distribution systems for news, entertainment, educational and advertising systems.

From his early days in as a cable TV producer, he focused on the efficient production of programming for both community producers and local origination facilities. In 2008, with the advent of video-over-IP technologies, he created an all-IP playout system used by television and cable operators today.

At the News-Press & Gazette Company, he is, focused on web and mobile streaming, over the top file based content and advanced television broadcast transmission.

Ira Goldstone, executive engineer at Fox, brings extensive experience at Tribune Broadcasting, Univision and Fox. He previously served two terms on ATSC board of directors and led the S34-1 subgroup on HDR. He co-chaired the 32-4 ad hoc group on core broadcast services and participated in S35’s work to identify ATSC 3.0 interoperability requirements.

His 25 years with Tribune Broadcasting were capped as VP and CTO. In 2008, Goldstone joined Univision Television Group as engineering VP, and joined Fox in 2014.  A SMPTE Fellow, he received the NAB Engineering Lifetime Achievement award in recognition of 35 years of broadcast industry technical leadership, and the Broadcast & Cable Technology Leadership Award.

Anne Schelle is managing director of the Pearl TV broadcaster partnership. During her tenure as a member of the ATSC board, she has led numerous working group initiatives focused on the support of the ATSC 3.0 standard.

Previously she was senior adviser to NAB and led the Open Mobile Video Coalition. Schelle was a founding management team member for the nation’s first commercial digital cellular network (Sprint Spectrum) and also xDSL Networks (a competitive local exchange carrier.)

Previous experience included key roles at LCC Inc., McCaw Cellular Communications and MCI/ Airsignal. She is also a past CEO of Acta Wireless and was vice chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association Board and founding chair of its video committee.

Dave Siegler is VP of technical operations for Cox Media Group at the company’s Atlanta headquarters. He leads CMG’s Technical Operations groups to integrate new technologies and processes across various platforms for broadcast television stations, one local cable television station, radio stations and newspapers.

His previous experience includes six years with Turner Broadcasting and 13 years in various positions with Post-Newsweek (Graham) Television Stations. A SMPTE Fellow and SBE Life Member, he received the B&C Technology Leadership Award. He chairs the ATSC 3.0 Personalization Interactivity & Interactivity Implementation Team and NAB’s Television Technology Committee.  He also serves on the boards of directors of SBE and IEEE BTS.