CHARLESTON, S.C.—Five stations in Charleston S.C. have started offering NextGen TV (aka ATSC 3.0) broadcasts.
With the launch, WCIV (the Sinclair-owned ABC affiliate), WCSC-TV (the Gray Television-owned CBS affiliate), WTAT-TV (the Cunningham-owned Fox affiliate), WCBD-TV (the Nexstar-owned NBC affiliate) and WGWG (the Howard Stirk Holdings-owned H&I affiliate) are now offering NextGen TV signals.
For the Charleston launch, WGWG, owned by Howard Stirk Holdings, converted to ATSC 3.0 transmissions. WGWG is broadcasting its own programming, as well as the programming of the other participating stations, in NextGen TV format.
All the programming of each participating station will continue to be available in the existing DTV format, which all modern television sets can receive. BitPath, which is developing new data broadcasting services, led the planning process and coordinated efforts across the five television stations.
This latest deployment marks the 47th market to launch ATSC 3.0 in the U.S. Approximately 45% of U.S. TV households are within range of receiving ATSC 3.0 with that percentage expected to grow to 75% by the end of 2022, according to the ATSC. CTA estimates that 3 million NextGen TV compatible TV sets have been sold in the U.S. so far and predicts sales of 4.5 million of the sets to be sold by the end of 2022.
TV Tech has been tracking all the markets that are planning to or have launched ATSC 3.0 broadcasts here.
For more information, visit TV Tech's NextGen TV page.
