3.0 Data Revenues To Start Trickling In Next Year

LAS VEGAS — With ATSC 3.0 signals currently reaching over 60% of the country, broadcast executives at the NAB Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday said they are ready to begin delivering datacasting services using the new transmission standard and should see revenues in early 2024. But they cautioned that the datacasting business remains hamstrung by launch delays in key big markets, as well as a lack of overall spectrum due to current FCC rules that require 3.0 stations to essentially simulcast the programming they already have on their 1.0 sticks.

Speaking on the panel “Monetizing NextGen Broadcast” moderated by TVNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp, Sinclair President-CEO Chris Ripley said he was happy with the FCC’s announcement Monday that it will create several task forces to assist broadcasters in completing their voluntary transition to 3.0, particularly with launch difficulties in some remaining large markets.

“We need a little bit of a push here from the FCC to finish off this transition,” Ripley said.

Ripley would also like to see the FCC take a leadership role in “signaling to the marketplace” that the transition will happen by announcing a sunset date for 1.0 and tackling the thorny issue of the substantially similar rule. That de-facto simulcasting requirement currently results in the new 3.0 stations in a market cramming together to share a single channel, with each getting only about 4 to 5 megabits per second total to play with.

“We think datacasting is an incredible opportunity for the industry that will be unlocked by ATSC 3.0,” said Ripley. “The reality of where we sit today is there is not a lot of excess spectrum available when every lighthouse [station] is burdened with all four affiliate businesses. That’s why the taskforce and getting to the sunset window is an important milestone. We believe revenue will start flowing through the datacasting marketplace as early as 2024, and we need to start that and build on that so we can diversify our revenues as an industry over time.”

Pat LaPlatney, president and co-CEO of Gray Television, noted that the FCC did a great job in “shepherding” the launch of 5G for wireless carriers. “We feel we need that same support for our industry,” he said.

Low-Bandwidth, High Value

Sinclair and Nexstar have been pursuing datacasting applications that don’t require many bits but still have high value through BitPath, their datacasting joint venture. Last year BitPath demonstrated several B-to-B applications for 3.0 including enhanced GPS services to provide better accuracy for utility and industrial applications and IoT device control that would let utilities communicate with HVAC systems during times of peak demand (perhaps suggesting a customer turn down their AC in exchange for a discount).

At the Wynn hotel this week BitPath was demonstrating a new B-to-B app, using 3.0 to distribute machine learning (ML) models from the cloud to intelligent devices at the edge that don’t have a full-time IP connection. Those ML models could be used to update predictive analytics in a smart sensor at a factory, or to send an image of a missing person to a security camera.

“That’s an asymmetric communication where you have big downloads and small uploads, and that’s a perfect use case for 3.0, where it can do something more efficiently than the current wireless infrastructure,” Ripley said.

Scripps has been working closely with Nexstar over the past year on datacasting, said E.W. Scripps President-CEO Adam Symson, and has just completed a core datacasting network in four contiguous markets. But while several broadcasters (including Nexstar) have pointed to a years-old BIA study that suggested datacasting revenues for the industry could approach $15 billion by 2030, Symson sought to downplay any near-term financial expectations.

“That is technically live, and we’re in the stages now of determining what that marketplace is worth,” Symson said. “You’re not seeing it on our earnings calls or press releases, because we have to make sure we’ve got an actual marketplace developed.”

Distributing data to automobiles, such as software updates, is another attractive opportunity for 3.0. Delivery of data files to automobiles, as well as live TV reception at highways speeds, has been extensively tested at the “Motown 3.0 Test Track” in Detroit developed by Pearl TV and managed by Scripps ABC affiliate WXYZ. But developing that as a business is still probably years away, as it first would require a national core network as well for slow-moving auto manufacturers to deploy 3.0 receivers in millions of cars.

“We’ve got to have the core network ubiquitously deployed,” Symson said. “We’ve got the core network up and running in four markets. That’s terrific. But that’s not going to compel Mercedes in four markets to suddenly start selling cars with different chips. So there’s an order of things that have to happen, and they’re happening. But there are other industries that I can see with fewer endpoints, whether it’s energy, agriculture, or IoT, where you don’t have to go through the process of selling to the consumer millions of cars for there to be an ROI.”

Defining The Marketplace

Ripley said enhanced GPS is likely to be the first source of datacasting revenues. That same prediction was made by BitPath COO Sasha Javid in a briefing at the Wynn on Monday evening, where he demonstrated how a small 3.0 transmitter could be used to send an updated ML model (in this case, a headshot of this reporter) to a smart camera running facial recognition software.

While the ML “backplane” application is brand new, Javid said Bitpath has been working steadily on the “NavPath” enhanced GPS application with a utility customer in Oregon who wants to use it to track natural gas leaks. That included running a commercial trial in Portland, Ore., last summer that replicated initial testing BitPath conducted in Washington, D.C.

The prospective NavPath customer was impressed by the low latency of the data delivered via 3.0 as well as its robust receivability, Javid said. Not only was the 3.0 signal received easily in downtown Portland, where urban canyons can interfere with cellular and satellite reception, but it was also received south of Salem, Ore., at a distance of up to 75 miles away. BitPath is working with the prospective customer on ruggedizing the enclosure for the NavPath receiver and hopes to have it finished and in the field by year-end.

Both NavPath and the ML application only require fractions of a megabit to operate, with a total payload of a few hundred kilobits at most including the overhead of robust modulation/coding. That is essential given the current spectrum realities, Javid said.

“We’re focusing on applications that are viable in the world we’re living in today and probably still in 2027, which are low-data-rate applications, high value, and maybe not a nationwide network,” he said. “And we’ve got to focus on those.”