NEW YORK and LOS ANGELE: Mobile Content Venture today revealed its game plan for launching over-the-air mobile DTV service. The joint venture of 12 broadcast groups said it would have service up and running in a total of 32 markets by the end of 2011. MCV had previously said it would get to 20 markets by the end of the year.
The additional markets comprising 21 stations are expected to include those from Gannett, Media General, Bahakel, Belo, Raycom, Scripps, Fox, NBC and Telemundo.
NEW MARKETS:
Seattle - KING (Belo)
Miami - WTVJ (NBC) & WSCV (Telemundo)
Denver - KUSA (Gannett)
Cleveland - WKYC (Gannett)
St. Louis - KSDK (Gannett)
Charlotte - WCCB (Bahakel) & WCNC (Belo)
Raleigh - WNCN (Media General)
Kansas City - KSHB (Scripps)
Columbus - WCMH (Media General)
Las Vegas - KBLR (Telemundo)
Tulsa - KJRH (Scripps)
Montgomery - WSFA (Raycom)
ADDITIONAL STATIONS IN PREVIOUSLY LAUNCHED MCV MARKETS:
New York - WNJU (Telemundo)
Los Angeles - KVEA (Telemundo)
Chicago - WSNS (Telemundo)
Dallas - KXTX (Telemundo)
Houston - KTMD (Telemundo)
Phoenix - KTVK (Belo)
San Jose - Telemundo 48 KSTS (Telemundo)
Last November, MCV's member companies committed to offering service in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, Tampa, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Orlando, Portland, Cincinnati, Greenville, S.C.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Birmingham, Ala.; and Knoxville., Tenn.
MVC is one of three broadcast consortiums pushing mobile digital television. It’s members include Belo, Gannett, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek Stations, and Raycom--all of which are part of Pearl Mobile DTV, a standalone entity for station groups that are not owned by national networks. Fox, ION and NBC are also members of MVC. The group as a whole recently announced it would use Nagra-Kudelski’s conditional access technology, and that it was partner with MobiTV to develop consumer streaming applications. It also cut deals with Dell and Samsung for compatible receivers.
The other major mobile DTV advocate groups are the Open Mobile Video Coalition, the members of which overlap with the MCV, and the Mobile500 Alliance comprising station groups not included in the MCV, though may have membership in the OMVC.
Around 73 TV stations in 33 markets were on the air with a mobile DTV signal as of early April. The recently OMVC predicted that two-thirds of all U.S. TV households would have access to a signal by next April. In the meantime, PBS member stations have agreed to help test a new Mobile Emergency Alert System with ATSC M/H, the mobile DTV standard.
-- Television Broadcast
