RICHMOND-PETERSBURG, Va.—All seven of Richmond-Petersburg’s full power local television stations have begun broadcasting with NextGen TV a.k.a. ATSC 3.0 signals.
The April 11 launch includes WRIC-TV (Nexstar-owned ABC affiliate), WTVR-TV (Scripps-owned CBS affiliate), WWBT (Gray Television-owned NBC affiliate), WRLH-TV (Sinclair-owned Fox affiliate), WCVE-TV and WCVW (VPM Media Corporation-owned PBS), and WUPV (Gray Television-owned CW affiliate).
For the launch, WUPV, owned by Gray Television, and WCVW, owned by VPM Media Corporation, have converted to ATSC 3.0 transmissions. Those stations will broadcast their 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 seven television stations.
This latest deployment marks the 49th 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.
