BUFFALO, N.Y.—ATSC 3.0, the new TV transmission standard that powers NextGen TV, has been deployed by five local TV stations in Buffalo, N.Y.—WKBW, WUTV, WIVB-TV, WGRZ and WNYO-TV.
WKBW is Buffalo’s ABC affiliate and is owned by E.W. Scripps; WGRZ is an NBC affiliate owned by Tegna; Sinclair owns both WUTV (Fox) and WNYO-TV (MyNet); and WIVB-TV is owned by Nexstar and is the market’s CBS affiliate.
The stations are collaborating to keep current programming available to all viewers, regardless of whether their TV services are over-the-air or by a cable or satellite company. If a viewer uses an antenna, they will need to rescan their TV for full service. No action is required for cable or satellite subscribers.
BitPath led the planning and coordination of the launch across the five stations.
Buffalo is the 24th market to launch ATSC 3.0 service, per ATSC, and the first in the state of New York. Other markets that are now broadcasting NextGen TV include Las Vegas, Phoenix, Detroit, Dallas, Salt Lake City and Seattle. TV Tech is tracking the complete list of ATSC 3.0 deployments here.
ATSC President Madeleine Noland recently said that Buffalo was one of three markets that filed with the FCC for ATSC deployment in February—Baltimore and Syracuse, N.Y., were the other two. When all of these markets are broadcasting ATSC 3.0, NextGen TV will be available to 25% of U.S. viewers, per Noland.
Noland also says that she expects 62 markets to have deployed ATSC 3.0 by March of 2022.
