BOULDER, Colo.—The Knight Foundation has awarded Public Media Venture Group (PMVG) a $1 million grant to advance NextGen TV innovation and promote the impact of public media, PMVG said today.
“This is a significant endorsement of the work of PMVG and the importance of the ATSC 3.0 platform, as well as other technologies by the Knight Foundation,” said PMVG CEO Marc Hand. “This will enable PMVG to work with public stations, technology companies and application developers to ensure that the transition to this platform brings the full range of benefits to local communities.”
The grant will be used to boost PMVG’s efforts to promote innovation and sustainability by pioneering initiatives that strengthen the bond between public media and its audience. Through NextGen TV, stations will be able to deliver enriched public interest content tailored to their communities. This includes local news and public affairs programming, interactive experiences and geo-targeted emergency information, it said.
“Ensuring that public media is able to adapt to new technology is a critical part of ensuring communities are informed and engaged,” said Jim Brady, the foundation’s vice president of journalism. “That’s why we’ve invested in PMVG’s efforts to develop and deploy NextGen TV. It will allow public news stations to better serve their tens of millions of users.”
The Knight Foundation-funded PMVG effort will enable the group to collaborate with the Information Equity Initiative (IEI), a nonprofit organization that leverages television spectrum to deliver customized digital content to homes and facilities that lack access to the internet. IEI’s work includes K-12 education, educational initiatives for individuals experiencing incarceration and public health applications with a focus on communities where broadband is inaccessible, unaffordable or unreliable.
“As media and content distribution technologies continue to change rapidly, PMVG will bring collaborations with a broad range of technology companies to future focused developments that are essential for public media. We are deeply appreciative of this support and endorsement by Knight, reflecting the leadership role the Foundation plays in building strong and sustainable local media,” said Hand.
The broadcast infrastructure of public media “reflects decades and tens of billions of dollars of investment,” said IEI CEO Erik Langner.
“It [the infrastructure] is a reliable, virtually ubiquitous resource that is currently underutilized. Working in collaboration with PMVG, we can deploy new services that leverage public media’s broadcast spectrum for the customized delivery of digital information with a special focus on those without steady internet access. Our solutions can be delivered in months, not years,” said Langner.
PMVG is a consortium of 32 public media organizations dedicated to advancing public media’s mission and financial vitality.
More information is available on the PMVG website.
