SEOUL & BALTIMORE—Sinclair Broadcast Group and SK Telecom are heading into this new era of broadcasting as partners, announcing a joint venture agreement that will have them work on new broadcasting technology based on ATSC 3.0, aka NextGen TV.
With NextGen TV beginning to rollout to U.S. stations this year—and with Sinclair and SK Telecom’s prediction that all U.S. stations will adopt the standard in the next decade—this joint venture will be able to provide ATSC 3.0 standards-based technology for U.S. broadcast stations, as well as other global opportunities.
Some of the new technologies that NextGen TV is expected to help achieve include personalized advertisement, in-vehicle terrestrial TV broadcasting and map updates, and two-way communication between broadcasting companies and user’s smartphone/vehicle/TV by recognizing users’ personal IP addresses.
“Sinclair is excited to partner with SK Telecom, a wireless technology leader, to explore and commercialize solutions that optimize the economic value of our spectrum, our broadcast infrastructure, our programming ventures and our emerging OTT platforms,” said Chris Ripley, president and CEO of Sinclair. “Bringing these assets together in a converged broadcast/broadband platform environment will be a significant value multiplier.”
The two companies have agreed to jointly fund and manage the joint venture company within the first quarter of 2020.
For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.
