RBR+TVBR 2017 Spring Special Report

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The New TV Company

As 2018 nears, two broadcast TV companies are seeking to fill a void in daytime TV programming by producing their own shows. What does this mean for the industry’s long-term growth?

Technology and Radio

Most consumers may say “radio” is what they listen to while driving, or when waking up in the morning and hitting the snooze bar on a clock radio.

With technology’s march forward with new devices and platforms, should radio be wary or welcoming?

The Return of TV Trades

The great post-spectrum-auction thaw is upon us. Will the dealmakers be talking about sizzling new transactions in Las Vegas, or will the deals be finalized in the suites at the Encore and Wynn resorts?

An ‘Over The Top’ Friend?

An Orlando-based entrepreneur wants to partner with every local TV station in the U.S., and bring their unique content to a global audience. Learn why Spincast may be an OTT entry worth noticing.

Top Trends in Media Tech

Curious as to what NAB Show vendors you may wish to connect with, even if you’re not in Las Vegas? Here’s a quick review of some of the companies that could benefit your bottom line.

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INFOCUS

LOCAL: BROADCAST TV’S PRESENT, AND FUTURE, KEY FOR SUCCESS

By Editor-in- Chief Adam R. Jacobson

These are challenging times for the television industry.

Say what?

Based on all media reports, we are living in a golden age of television. But these stories focus primarily on the content one presently enjoys. Think about where this content is being viewed, and via what source.

A few minutes before reading these words, you could have been watching an episode of The Americans, the riveting 1980s-set drama featuring spies of the Soviet Union posing as everyday Americans with families. The acclaimed FX series could have been viewed on cable Channel 44. Or it could have been viewed via an app on your smartphone or tablet while cozy in bed. Furthermore, it could have been viewed on your TV, but through a Roku device that has FXNOW. Meanwhile, there are shows including The Man in the High Castle, through Amazon Video; Stranger Things and House of Cards, on Netflix; and The Good Fight, on the recently launched CBS All Access, driving “over-the-top” viewing.

Then there is the unique programming on traditional premium cable channels, such as HBO and Showtime.

Oh, and there’s also this thing called “broadcast television,” featuring free over-the-air channels with a plethora of local and network programming. Yes, there are a ton of video entertainment sources offering long-form programming (we won’t mention the short-form video that’s exploding on the internet).

With more ways than ever to consume what was once “TV,” Perry Sook, executive chairman and president/CEO of Nexstar Media Group and newly elected chairman of the Television Advertising Bureau (TVB), is confident in his belief that broadcast television has a bright future.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Radio + Television Business Report, Sook repeatedly used the word “local” while offering heartfelt thoughts about where broadcast TV is headed. With the former Media General stations being integrated into Nexstar and new investments focusing on news delivery, Sook is creating a strong blueprint for the continued health of broadcast TV — and its long-term consumer need.

AN IMPORTANCE TO GAIN SCALE In January 2017, after a lengthy delay connected to the FCC’s ongoing spectrum auction, Nexstar closed on its roughly $4.6 billion stock and cash acquisition of Media General.

Few questioned the logic of the deal. Yet it does raise the question of why Nexstar believes so strongly in broadcast TV’s coming years that it would invest billions in more UHF and VHF properties. “I am very excited about the future of local media, which is the core area of the industry we play in,” Sook says.

“We are about local content, and we are in the communities where our stations are.

We play to our advertisers and our consumers there every day.”

S PRIN G 2017 · RB R .C O M · 1

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Of course, the Nexstar-Media General deal local and national content offerings are conwas also consummated to create additional scale. cerned.”

“It was important to get to scale, because of the At the same time, Sook says “thoughtful other issues with our business.” long-term discussions” are necessary, so they Among those issues are negotiating with make good business sense for Nexstar. multichannel video programming distributors As far as the distribution of Nexstar’s chan(MVPDs) — a subject that has placed a dark cloud nels and its own content, Sook says, “I’m relaover some TV owner groups. Sook saved that tively ambivalent as to what screen we use.” conversation for later. That’s because the key Yes, Nexstar does allow for the distribution reason, he believes, that consumers will conof its content through TV station apps. But, he tinue to choose local TV is content. believes, “This is more of a transitional tech“We have 100 local markets where we do nology. Do I think this is where the industry business, and when it comes to the content will be in five years? No.” we deliver, it’s about school closings [due to For Sook, the content will continue to need weather] or that ‘bus stop forecast’ for the some kind of pipeline, whether it is wireless, morning,” Sook says. “In medium-sized to larger markets, we are connected or fiber. It is the middle-ware that will change, he the purveyor of the local content in the market.” believes.

That could come as a shock to some radio station operators, Meanwhile, there is much monetization and a bevy of benefits to who have yielded considerable air time to nationally syndicated come following the anticipated rollout later this year of ATSC 3.0, air talent but may have fallen short with the content offered durthe new broadcast TV standard that aligns everything digitally. As ing local breaks.

RBR + TVBR reported March 15, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Sook’s primary audience-conversion target isn’t AM or FM radio, Broadcast Group entered into a memorandum of understanding however; he says, “To be the originator of locally produced content is regarding the establishment of the consortium, which will be jointly something we take seriously, with the diminution of the newspaper.” owned and controlled on a 50/50 basis by the companies.

This has seen the doubling of the Nexstar’s Washington, D.C. news “We are big believers in the potential of ATSC 3.0, and we founded bureau, which is being headed by Bill Mondora — most recently the the consortium to aggregate and monetize and create a single point VP/news director for Fox’s Los Angeles duo of KTTV-11 and KCOP-13. of contact for broadcast spectrum, as necessary,” Sook explains.

“We did this to better serve our bigger station footprint,” Sook says.

Simply put, Sook says ATSC 3.0 brings improved picture quality, in “But it is also an opportunity to build greater local context to people back home, whether they be in Fresno or in Rochester, N.Y.” Sook was asked to describe the integration progress at the former Media General stations.

Coincidentally, he had just come from one of the two-hour integration task force meetings he chairs once a month. At these meetings, every discipline from IT to HR to digital reviews where things stand, and the initiatives designed to make the transition as smooth as possible.

This transition meeting included a closed— Perry Sook circuit telecast for all employees, which Sook hosted, that outlined the integration initiatives for the first 120 days. “I think we have been very clear in terms addition to an IP-based schema to connect seamlessly to all interof our communications in how things will evolve,” Sook says. net-connected gadgets. He also thinks that the measurement poten“Regardless of what uniform or shirt [they] are wearing, [they] are tial of broadcast TV improves greatly with ATSC 3.0, and that there all a part of the same team.” are ancillary benefits, such as more efficient use of the spectrum.

At this point, Sook says Nexstar is ahead of schedule on some “With ATSC 3.0, we can build 20 houses on the same piece of specthings, such as employee payroll. Traffic is now in the process of trum as we did for five houses,” Sook says of the ability to greatly being consolidated. One of the byproducts and benefits of the expand the number of broadcast TV channels available in a market. consolidation, Sook notes, is being able to amortize costs. That’s POSITIVE TALK WITH PAI because upside potential was seen in every market.

He says, “We have very good people that are running these stations.

With new leadership in the White House, what would Sook want Now, there is one company, one direction and one momentum. Our FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Michael O’Rielly and pace is probably a little more intense than other companies in our Mignon Clyburn to focus on in the weeks and months ahead? industry, but the employees are getting excited about it.”

Sook has already sat down with Chairman Pai to share his Why? It all comes down to what the viewer sees. “Our value thoughts. He says of Pai, “I think he will be a very mindful leader proposition is that we offer marquee network programming along — mindful of technology and mindful of the free market, without with quality local programming, and it is a unique value proposithe government’s hand on the till.” tion,” Sook says.

Sook also advocated for the reinstatement of the “UHF discount,” joining others including CBS Corp. EVP/Government A SOLID SHIFT TO ATSC 3.0 Affairs John Orlando who have met with FCC staffers on bringing As digital platforms and OTT entrants continue to nibble away at back the discount, which permitted the FCC to count 50% of a broadcast TV, Sook is certainly keeping his eye on the contenders and UHF station’s audience when determining the commission’s 39% pretenders, with respect to distribution and business partnerships. national ownership limit for television broadcasters.

What will this mean for Nexstar in the next three to five years?

Why does Sook want the UHF discount restored? “The entire “Technology may change how we do what we do, but I don’t ownership cap is a relic of a bygone era,” Sook argues. Thus, with think human nature has changed that much,” Sook says. “We want the discount rule restored, the entire ownership-limit rules can be to watch the big show and talk about it the next day, and we want reviewed and adjusted accordingly. to know what the weather will be the next day. We are in discusFor Sook, it’s about revenue percentages in a local market, sions with all of these new entrants as far as ways to expand our more than anything else. “In local marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey

“We need to stop regulating over-the-air television as its own marketplace. We definitely compete against more than just the other local TV stations.”

S PRIN G 2017 · RB R .C O M · 3

looked at local revenue across all DMAs — and TV accounts for 14% of all local revenue,” he notes. “We need to stop regulating over-the-air television as its own marketplace. We definitely compete against more than just the other local TV stations when it comes to consumers and advertisers.”

Among the other things Sook is actively advocating is the abolishment of the “eight-voice test.” He says, “When we compete with cable interconnects that own 30-40 channels, it seems to be a rule that happens to be of a bygone era.”

Sook also seeks the elimination of a rule that prohibits a television station owner from possessing two TV stations that place in the top 4 of a Nielsen ratings survey.

When will changes take place? “I think the FCC will take their time, take my input along with others, and whatever decisions they make will be on their own timetable,” Sook says.

NO DELIVERY DISRUPTION As cable systems adjust their bundles and pricing, and OTT services continue to spring up, has there been any material impact yet on broadcast companies such as Nexstar?

“I am old enough to have grown up when cable started in the 1960s,” Sook says. “The original cable systems brought customers only broadcast TV channels. These channels are still the foundation of the skinniest of skinny bundles. If I am thoughtful with my agreements, I am going to be ambivalent as far as if it is an MVPD or an OTT. The advantage of a skinny bundle is that I am competing against fewer channels.”

Again, it comes down to how Nexstar’s channels get to the consumer, and any way that makes sense for Sook is up for discussion. That being said, retransmission fee agreements have been a hot-button topic since January 1, with companies such as Frontier Communications and Sinclair fighting for weeks over a deal that saw the ABC affiliates in Portland, Ore., and Seattle get yanked from local cable systems.

Sook is proud of his company’s ability to get retrans deals done

with no disruption to the cable subscriber since 2005.

He also points out that some 15% of total viewers watch Nexstar TV stations with “rabbit ears” — that good ol’ antenna connected to a TV. With pacings for 2017 showing core revenue (national and local) growth at 1%-3% in any given year, distribution revenue remains strong. At the end of the day, Nexstar’s financial success comes down to one thing: delivery on local content, and keeping the local consumer happy.

This means fighting back against new local competitors — including Facebook. “Digital revenue is 95% local,” Sook says. “We did an exercise with local GMs where we asked our advertisers if they buy Facebook ads locally. Approximately half of our existing advertisers do so. The point of this was to raise everyone’s awareness. If you don’t think they are taking dollars from everyone’s advertising budget, think again.”

He points to TEGNA-owned Cars.com as one example of how digital platforms have been taking ad dollars from Nexstar’s local advertisers for years. “We offer similar products that say you can do business with someone you see at church, or while golfing or at your civic club, and who else can do that?” Sook says.

This fundamental focus on the community is perhaps one key reason why Sook in 1996 founded Nexstar by acquiring its first station — a Scranton, Pa.-based property with the call letters WYOU. Aside from radio, “There is no other medium that has that great local connection,” Sook says. “We all live in a local market somewhere. It’s like the last mile in the TV business. We are the ones that deliver the message into the local consumers’ home, and people are very mindful that their local TV stations provide them with the local information. And you don’t hear much about local news being ‘fake news.’”

Sook concludes, “We live in the community, and that means we need to respond to the things that mean the most to the community. We have the ability to tailor the message, and to be with someone at the point of purchase. It’s the only thing we’ve known for the last 21 years.”

The New TV Company: Content Producer, Affiliate Owner For years, any broadcast TV station not owned by one of the “big four” networks was often looked at as a distribution channel for marquee programming in primetime, late-nights, and morning drive, and for a wide range of syndicated daytime programming.

At NATPE 2017 in Miami Beach earlier this year, something disrupted this widely held assumption. A dearth of new syndie programming was available, and the overall vibe suggested the marketplace was drying up. Concurrently, two major broadcast TV station groups made headlines by revealing plans to address their programming holes.

As 2018 nears, the evolution of the broadcast TV company is unfolding in, of all places, the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

Following in the footsteps of Tribune Media, but in a much more calculated fashion, are Sinclair Broadcast Group and TEGNA, the company formerly known as Gannett before

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spinning off its newspaper division in 2015.

At Baltimore-based Sinclair, Vice Chairman David Amy has come a long way since serving as business manager for then-WPTT-22 in Pittsburgh back in the 1980s. Today, he’s leading Sinclair into the world of original programming, and it’s being seen on both linear and digital David Amy platforms.

Is this the future formula for a broadcast TV company’s success? After all, with the rise of “OTT” and network apps from NBC and ABC, content created and owned by an affiliate group gives a broadcaster something no one else has.

Bob Sullivan

“You’re asking one hell of a question when it comes to how we are going to manage the future of the industry,” Amy remarks. “We’re going to be more than just broadcasters, when it comes to people and how they consume content. We need

to take advantage of our platform, and as we move into the new technology of ATSC 3.0, it becomes all the more powerful.”

Amy was at NATPE 2017. He agrees with the assessment that there was not a whole lot of new programming. But he noticed that short-form programming and the type of video being created for digital distribution was gaining interest.

A ‘TBD’ DATE WITH DIGITAL DELIVERY Short-form programming is of such interest to Amy and his team at Sinclair that it’s set to get a home on a new multicast channel, bearing the name TBD. Amy calls TBD a curated showcase of content created expressly for the digital environment, with a broadcast delivery method powering its distribution.

“We call it that because it just doesn’t fit any of the linear, standard :30 or :60 programs,” Amy notes. “It’s just a continuous streaming of video content.”

TBD was given a demonstration run at NATPE. Amy recalls, “Other presenters have a lot of scaling issues. To be as creative as they want to be requires a lot of creative talent and the people to put it together, and that is very expensive. At the end of the day, actual consumption — and the ability to reach people — is very limited.”

Furthermore, Amy believes internet stars who capture the viewer’s attention and create a sizable audience are “just so few and far between.” He says, “It’s fascinating to see the direction of where things are going.

It’s no longer just the half-hour show. TBD just adds to our ability to reach the audiences that are out there. Look at the viewing levels — some channels aren’t nearly as popular as the traditional four networks.”

Sinclair is also actively developing nonscripted programming for the broadcast TV daytime skein at its stations. This is being done on two fronts, so to speak, with Amy ensuring that OTT products are in place as ATSC 3.0 brings new over-the-air opportunities for Sinclair’s stations.

With respect to ATSC 3.0, the question becomes how the original programming can become complementary to the OTT products that Sinclair is working on.

One thing is clear about where Sinclair is heading with respect to its content creation. “We’re not a production house,” Amy says. At the same time, he sees ATSC 3.0 as a way to prove that TV is one of the first wireless media, along with radio.

Amy notes, “From a channel standpoint, we have to program our stations 24 hours a day. Networks don’t provide 24 hours of programming. So, from a distribution standpoint, we have to ask how we ensure we have a pipeline of product coming our way that is essential to our channels.”

Sinclair is the largest affiliate group for both The CW network and MyTV. Thus, judge shows, game shows, and reality shows are big daytime draws. Examining Sinclair’s stations, Amy says, “We will take

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a look at those opportunities with the syndicators out there, and look at the type of influence we can have with them.”

One show Sinclair is seeing success with at its stations is Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson, a weekly Sunday news program focusing on investigative, original and accountability reporting.

“The only drawback is expanding distribution beyond our own channels,” Amy says.

Thus, while Full Measure appears in 79 Sinclair markets, it still has a way to go to reach a fully national audience. “At the moment, we are looking for ways to expand the distribution,” Amy notes. “If Nexstar called and said, ‘We want to put it on our station in Memphis,’ we would be happy to have that discussion.”

Meanwhile, Sinclair’s 5-year-old Circa — an online news and entertainment service — is where Amy sees Sinclair moving in terms of news coverage and content creation. “It’s not just news,” he says. “It is news and entertainment and a number of verticals that fall under the Circa heading.”

It’s very young, but is “making noise in terms of what a great job it is doing uncov-

“It’s fascinating to see the direction of where things are going.”

— David Amy

ering different headline stories that no one else has,” Amy notes. “We’re able to leverage that on our local stations as well.”

DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MULTIPLE MULTICASTS Digital multicasts are also a way for broadcast TV companies to gain a bigger foothold in a universe where televised programming can come via a multitude of sources. Sinclair in late 2015 launched Comet TV as a science fiction and horror network through a partnership with MGM. “It’s been on for a little more than a year, and it’s doing very good,” Amy says.

Distribution has been primarily on Sinclair stations, with select partners also taking the offering. “It’s a surprisingly good offering. It has a niche, but it is offering quality programming, and we continue to hear a lot of positive comments about it. It’s doing better than expected.”

That success is one of the reasons Comet can now be viewed by way of a brand-new app for Apple TV and Roku. Furthermore, the positive viewer and advertiser reaction from Comet led Sinclair to expand that business model with the development of Charge!, a digital network focused on action-adventure programming.

The second network to come via its MGM

partnership boasts more than 2,000 movie titles, such as Dances with Wolves and Platoon, and such TV series as In the Heat of the Night and The Magnificent Seven.

Some 50 affiliates launched Charge! in February and early March.

AFFILIATE OWNER, PROGRAMMER As broadcast television companies seek to retain their wide reach among consumers, while keeping the all-important advertising client happy through strong ROI, a new paradigm has taken shape at Northern Virginia-based TEGNA. While multiple syndication agreements continue to play a key role in filling the daytime programming grid, TEGNA is aggressively building a slate of its own programs.

Bob Sullivan serves as TEGNA’s Phoenixbased SVP/programming. The fact that TEGNA has such a position speaks volumes on how serious it is about development of its own shows.

Having such a job at a broadcast TV company best known as an affiliate owner was a largely foreign concept to Sullivan for much of his early career.

“It didn’t cross my mind until 2010,” he says. That’s when he got a call from The E.W. Scripps Company, which wanted to develop its own shows.

“My first thought was that they were interested in programming for weekends, or on a weekly basis,” Sullivan recalls.

“Then, they said, ‘We’re thinking of replacing Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!”

So the journey began for Sullivan. “Only Tribune had been doing that.”

At TEGNA, Sullivan says he’s raised the bar on that initial challenge presented to him while at Scripps. “It has accelerated rapidly,” he notes. “We have all of these TV stations, and all of these time periods, and all of this beachfront property. But, in essence, we were leasing all of our spaces for daytime, early fringe and other key time frames.”

With the emergence of other video delivery platforms, TEGNA started looking holistically at other forms of content. Sullivan sees it as a necessity in the ever-changing paradigm for broadcast TV owners.

“If we had not gotten into this endeavor, under the old model the only option that my 30-something station group would have to replace T.D. Jakes are reruns of Dateline NBC,” he says. “Not to be disparaging to that show, but old reruns would be the only thing that would be offered as a replacement. We are trying to control our real estate and trying to control our destiny.” That means ensuring that TEGNA’s stations have multiple avenues for content and for monetization.

TRANSITIONING FROM T.D. Pastor, author and filmmaker T.D. Jakes’ show is presently in wind-down mode. The end of Jakes’ program is a perfect tale of where broadcast TV finds itself economically in mid-2017.

“Daytime talk is an extremely challenging landscape, but it all starts with talent, and he’s an extremely good communicator,” Sullivan says. In fall 2016, the results from the show were “very positive,” he notes. “Obviously our first play was a big swing, and we did it.”

Looking back at the daytime TV landscape, since 2016, some 94 shows of all formats have been launched. Only 11 of those shows are still in production, Sullivan says.

With Jakes, “We realized in summer 2016 that this guy was the real deal,” he says.

“We thought that we had the right guy.”

Yet there will be no second season for T.D. Jakes. “Everything to do with the economics of daytime,” Sullivan explains. “We needed a wider footprint, and the landscape was not allowing it.”

A second season of the NBCUniversalsyndicated Harry, hosted by Harry Connick Jr., further complicated the growth possibilities for Jakes’ show. “It had nothing to do with the quality [of T.D. Jakes],” Sullivan says.

It also had little to do with Nielsen ratings.

“We were beating or at parity with shows that had been on for a long time.”

The shift from T.D. Jakes will see the rollout this autumn of “a live, interactive, multiplatform topical entertainment program,” originally bearing the name BOLD and now taking the title The Daily Beast Live. The program seeks to be the industry’s first live multi-daypart2017 syndicated spotlighting NAB copy.pdfshow, 1 3/30/2017 3:04:55 PM the day’s essential stories, information and

“The landscape is tight – some of this has to do with the long-standing behemoth studios, like CBS.” — Bob Sullivan

trending social media content in real time across multiple screens.

The Daily Best Live will be produced uniquely for each time zone. “Each live 30-minute episode will be distinct and able to capture the stories people are talking about at that exact moment,” TEGNA said in January, upon announcing the show’s fall arrival at TEGNA stations. It will air across TEGNA stations.

Sullivan comments, “Electing barter status in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles is not part of the business model. Our model is getting the widest distribution in season one and then seeing if we can grow the distribution in season two. The landscape is tight — some of this has to do with the longstanding behemoth studios, like CBS. “It’s all a real estate grab. They have so much product out there. When you’re clear-

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ing those shows, not only are you locking up real estate, but they come to you — and want you to lock up those shows until 2020.

You don’t even know how it’s performing in 2017, let alone 2018. And they aren’t the only ones that do it. It’s a big land grab.”

As more broadcasters do their own shows, that locks up real estate as well. “Our feeling is that quality wins, and the viewer decides what shows make it and what shows don’t,” Sullivan reasons.

TEGNA President Dave Lougee’s vision is that the biggest chunk of the programming Sullivan oversees is linear, and “ideation” should come out of that dynamic. That means more product designed for TEGNA station apps. “We haven’t gone there yet, but we have to start to put our toe in the water,” Sullivan says.

The same can be said for putting TEGNA shows on an OTT platform. Sullivan says, “The industry is changing so much.

Platforms are exploding. My team and I spend as much time on who the right people are we should be talking to and what we should commit to.

“The concept from the day I walked in the door and met with Dave Lougee is that every show has to be live ... and multiplatform.

We started working on this concept, and the basis is simple: to be on multiple screens you consume and control your content on.

This includes cell phones, desktops, TVs — and the two-way communication process not part of that yet is TV.”

TECHNOLOGY AND RADIO: BRETHREN OR BATTLE FOES? AM. FM. SiriusXM. For a good period of time, this was “radio.” Now, one must ask the question: What constitutes “radio”? Most people may say “radio” is what they listen to while driving. Or it could be that audio programming coming out of the clock radio when the alarm goes off.

A growing number of consumers may say “radio” is what they listen to via a smartphone app such as iHeartRadio or Townsquare Media’s radioPup. Or they may not call this “radio,” as it is simply more audio entertainment that, to them, may be no different from that offered by Pandora, or Spotify, or Amazon, or Tidal, or…

You get the picture. Audio entertainment choices today are infinite, and readily accessible.

Is this the era of radio’s last stand?

“I think two or three years ago, technology did present a challenge to radio,” says Bob Proffitt, the Portland, Ore.-based president and CEO of Alpha Media, a pureplay radio company founded by Larry Wilson some eight years after Wilson exited the business through the sale of Citadel Communications to Forstmann Little & Co., which ultimately merged the company with Cumulus Media.

Proffitt recalls, “A lot of old-time programmers had been told to keep the audience as much as possible, or to recycle them. As digital came along, we started hearing again about the death of radio.”

But is digital radio’s Grim Reaper, or is it the industry’s savior?

This is where radio and TV broadcasters have something in common: Digital can bring radio into locales it hasn’t had a presence in for years.

“We want to be everywhere the listener is going to be,” Proffitt says. “We want our content to be very easy to consume, and we want to utilize social media to talk to the consumer when they leave us on-air.”

This is especially important for Alpha some 13 months after it officially took over a group of stations it acquired from the Dean Goodman-led Digity. This includes such “beachfront” property as a cluster of stations in West Palm Beach, including a market-leading FM with a signal that reaches most of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market.

“As we roll these people in [from Digity to Alpha] and as we see what other companies are doing, we have tried to make the pivot while not getting too focused on the next shiny bright object that will take listeners’ attention,” Proffitt says.

This “pivot” is loosely defined as bringing radio’s hosts into the digital realm, and making them social media stars. One example of this dual-media brand expansion

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Proffitt offers centers on popular KTSA-AM San Antonio morning host Trey Ware. “He does a lot of endorsements, and we love talent endorsements,” Proffitt says. “The intent we have is to utilize our social media to further enhance the social relationship.”

Some of the newer Alpha Media markets have shown some hesitation in embracing this philosophy, but there’s progress.

That’s integral to the growth of local digital marketing solutions, a key area for radio’s sales executives to capitalize on.

“Right now, everything we are trying to do is serve that local advertiser,” Proffitt says.

Dual-line reporting in Nielsen Audio local market reports brings added value to radio, he notes. “This way we can monetize the stream. We decided to simulcast, with geotargeting, our stations, and that is one of the hotter things we can offer the advertiser.”

This, again, points to radio’s core strengths as a local-first medium. In Portland, Adult Alternative KINK-FM tried to monetize its audio stream some eight years ago by introducing ad-insertion technology. Today, bringing all over-the-air ads to streaming audio consumers in the area is smarter — and more profitable.

As of now, out-of-town streamers get a barrage of PSAs. Eventually, Alpha will see its way to put a national metric to advertisers and monetize this group of listeners.

That’s less of a priority, however, than appealing to the consumer who has gone to an Alpha Media/Portland station website who also happens to be a Facebook fan of client Mercedes-Benz of Wilsonville.

In a world where Google AdWords are being purchased by local advertisers and a big regional advertiser is buying ads on Pandora, making that FM-to-handset con-

nection is vital. Alpha is just one of the radio companies that has responded.

“It used to be about just :30s and :60s and remotes and concerts,” Proffitt says.

“Now, we have a lot of different things to sell you.”

In some markets, contest and promotion company Aptivada has been brought into the fold, with social media and online contesting tools able and ready to aid a radio station in the digital universe.

At Alpha Media, Orange County, Calif.based Stefan Brock — a former lead producer for the Disney Interactive Media Group — was brought on in June 2015 as VP of interactive. Under Brock, unity is happening across Alpha’s stations. “We had all sorts of different contracts and different deals,” Proffitt says, with the Digity stations particularly challenging. “Now, for instance, all of the Country guys are sharing with those other Country stations.”

It’s all tied to Proffitt’s commitment to having Alpha become a digitally savvy company. “It’s about having great content, and pulling on-air, online and social all together.”

THE ‘NEXT’ STEP FOR RADIO’S DIGITAL GROWTH At Emmis Communications, founder and Chairman/CEO Jeff Smulyan has been perhaps the industry’s highest-profile champion of bringing AM and FM into the realm of new and ever-changing technology.

“We have always tried to embrace change, and I think that was the genesis of NextRadio,” he says of an app available for most Android smartphones that activates an FM radio chip in the phone, bringing data-free local radio to consumers.

For Smulyan, one of the biggest questions

he and his peers must answer is this: “How can we employ technology to improve the industry?”

He says, “You are never going to stop an idea whose time has come, and there is a pretty strong opportunity for this industry to transition.”

This requires an embrace of technology and digital opportunities, and it starts in the C-suite and flows down to the individual stations.

“All changes come internally,” Smulyan says. “You have to first embrace change, and then figure out what you don’t know.

There has to be a willingness internally.”

At Emmis, that started a long time ago, with the development of HD Radio.

“We looked at the digital spectrum and thought it may not be so compelling,” Smulyan says. At first, a low-cost pay service was in the mix, perhaps to challenge Sirius or XM Satellite Radio, once competitors and now the lone satellite radio company as SiriusXM. With WiFi and internet audio streaming growing, the logical step for Smulyan was to weave broadcast radio into the mix.

“The marriage of the internet and overthe-air radio is what we have exemplified with NextRadio,” Smulyan says.

For those unfamiliar with NextRadio, the concept is simple: Download the app, and it turns your compatible smartphone into the Sony Walkman of 2017, giving your phone a local FM radio receiver while pairing over-the-air content with a visual accompaniment.

“The idea with NextRadio is to make that device more interactive, and to increase the distribution of over-the-air radio that is compelling in different locations,” Smulyan says.

A VISION FOR AUDIO’S FUTURE Bringing visual aspects to radio is cru-

Jeff Smulyan

Bob Proffitt

cial to how the industry will continue to attract an audience, Smulyan believes.

“When we first got involved, it wasn’t enough to just turn the radio on,” he says.

“This is especially true in the interactive world. The consumer of today is used to visualization, and our aim is to replicate every part of the radio station.”

Advertisers have responded positively to the possibilities that come with NextRadio, even as Apple’s iOS devices remain a holdout regarding an app that even some government officials have deemed essential in cases of emergencies.

“I think they have said that this is a game-playing call to action,” Smulyan says of key radio clients. “We have been astounded at the fervor for this. The feedback has been great. The Home Depot, Allstate, Burger King and Comcast are a few of the companies behind this that come to mind right away.”

Alpha Media’s Proffitt has all of his stations fully tied in to the NextRadio platform.

“We are all hooked up, and I’d love to see Apple get involved with it,” Proffitt says. “Jeff has done a wonderful job for the industry. As much as anything else, it’s public service and it doesn’t draw data down. The antenna is a bit of an issue, as the headphones are the antenna and wireless headphones are becoming the norm.

But it’s just another place where radio can be a tool, when used properly, that can enhance the listener experience.”

That alone may be the way radio remains relevant in 2020, and beyond.

Smulyan says, “I was never one that felt we are in an industry that was regulated to death. We love our reach, and we love the fact that there is an idea that some of the digital allocation of dollars will come to radio. We are excited. We feel like there are significant opportunities in the years ahead.”

S PRIN G 2017 · RB R .C O M · 9

The Return of TV Trades It’s coming … the wave of new broadcast TV transactions. Everyone’s anticipating it.

But when is it set to start?

So far, a trickle of deals have been consummated. With the end of the FCC’s Reverse Auction and millions of dollars gained by companies such as Entravision Communications (which pocketed $264 million), Univision ($376 million) and Sinclair Broadcast Group ($313 million), will NAB Show attendees in Las Vegas be striking deals — or gossiping about million-dollar station trades set to be announced as the television industry’s biggest annual confab unfolds?

Veteran media broker Glenn Serafin tells RBR + TVBR that, as he sees it, “Once the dust settles, even after big mergers like the Media General-Nexstar deal, I fully expect a surge in TV deals.”

But radio deals aren’t expected to see a similar ignition boost in 2017.

“While I expect transactions to pick up going forward, I don’t see much of a change in radio trading metrics from 2016 to 2017,” says Serafin. “For radio, we’ve settled into a range of 6X broadcast cash flow, plus or minus 1X — depending on the size of the market, the quality of the stations and/or clusters and the competitive nature of the market the stations are in.”

Thus, 2017 is poised to be the year of TV transactions. “You have to wonder when TV consolidation ever will end!” Serafin says. “TV multiples have been in the 8X range. We’re just out of a quadrennial year, so perhaps buyers will pull back a little on value when estimating forward cash flow. But TV, I think, will remain a strong

Marci Ryvicker

transaction market.”

The rest of the year also looks good to George Reed, a media broker with Media Services Group based out of the Jacksonville, Fla. office.

“I believe that 2017 trading will be driven by deregulation, an improving economy and, on the TV side, the aftermath of the spectrum auction,” Reed says. “Taking the easy one first, TV will be robust. The winners in the auction may have money to reinvest; the losers will be looking for Plan B.” Again, the focal point of deals expected to be finalized over the next three quarters will more likely involve UHF and VHF prop-

erties, and not AM and FM stations.

Marci Ryvicker, managing director of equity research at Wells Fargo Securities, believes that — based on investors buying TV-industry stocks — there will be plenty of mergers and acquisitions over the next eight months.

With the spectrum auction nearing its conclusion, the dealmakers will soon look to the FCC to restore the UHF discount.

Once that’s done, the commission’s local ownership rules will come under the microscope and more than likely be loosened.

From there, the national ownership cap will come into review.

As Ryvicker notes, Congress has the authority to do that, and there is the possibility of the FCC’s granting an increase in this cap.

“There is no substantive reason for the UHF discount not to be reinstated,” Ryvicker says, noting that key Republican leadership on the commission was disappointed in the process of how it was eliminated.

“The UHF discount was born with the national ownership cap, and they were supposed to work together,” Ryvicker explains. “As the national ownership cap was not looked at, since authority sits with Congress, a return of the discount will allow for a proper review of the entire package of limits. [FCC] Chairman [Ajit] Pai has said that the process was incorrect, and that a review of the discount should have been done in lockstep with the national ownership cap review.”

With retransmission fees fueling TV revenues and ATSC 3.0 on the way, there’s good

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reason for investors to be buying TV stocks and the M&A market appears as though it’s ready to burst the dam constructed by the spectrum auction.

For radio, “it’s totally different” — and financial analysts who cover media- and advertising-driven businesses seem indifferent to the medium.

“I’m not sure what scale brings in radio,” Ryvicker says. “There are no retransmission deals, and thus not the same level of leveraging power.”

While the Entercom tax-free merger with CBS Radio is a big deal, Ryvicker reminds market observers that it was unique in how it was structured, and how it happened. Thus, radio dealers have a tougher task ahead.

“The bid ask has always been pretty wide, and the argument could be made that there could be fewer radio stations, not more.”

For the record, Entercom is the only radio company Ryvicker is covering, mainly due to its new relationship with CBS Corp. “We covered Scripps, which has radio stations,” she notes.

Why not iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media, Beasley Broadcast Group or Saga Communications, among other publicly traded radio companies?

“There’s not a lot of interest in radio equity, so our time has been better spent on larger-cap companies,” Ryvicker says.

TV’S FRAGILE PROFIT MODEL While Ryvicker foresees a much higher level of activity for TV deals than for the radio sector, she is wary of TV’s ability to maintain healthy revenue growth.

“Core advertising is decelerating, and we are looking at ‘GDP minus’ no matter how you slice it,” Ryvicker says. “Maybe new programming is helping it not go further, but it’s hard to give anything beyond retransmission revenue.”

But what about companies such as

HE T E

SAV

TEGNA, Sinclair and Tribune Media, which have invested in content creation? “One of the reasons they are developing new content is that if they are more attached to viewers, cable companies can’t drop them,” Ryvicker reasons.

Thus, she adds, while retrans margins are going down over time for broadcast TV companies, the dollars, fees and EBITDA percentage are still growing every year.

Interestingly, pro football plays an outsized role in how the entire broadcast television business will fare in five years, Ryvicker believes.

She says, “What does the whole ecosystem look like when the new NFL [agreement] is signed in 2020 or 2022? The greatest leverage the television industry has is football rights. If something happens, then you question the retrans model.”

That’s not to assume that the broadcast rights will suddenly go away, with the NFL moving exclusively to pay TV. However, Ryvicker says, “I think it is something to be cognizant of as we get to the contract ending.”

Meanwhile, deal makers need not worry about Netflix or over-the-top players. That’s because they’re not in the ecosystem.

Ryvicker says, “What would they buy from the TV companies? Netflix is a library.

It’s binge-watching. It’s a completely different model. They’re too smart to get involved [with broadcast television].”

What may be more relevant to the broadcast TV operator are services such as DirecTV Now or Hulu.

“There’s no broad-based participation because they aren’t getting paid what they get paid in the retrans,” Ryvicker says. Yet streaming services need stations, and this is where broadcast TV has leverage.

Unfortunately, Ryvicker questions how TV advertising can grow, and calls it the industry’s biggest challenge. “In 1997 you didn’t

have as many options for video,” she notes.

Her words for radio operators are less kind. “This is just an industry that has not been known to be forward-thinking,” she says. “I don’t know how you can have a perception problem for 10 years. With radio, you don’t have a clear leader.”

But she believes Entercom President/CEO David Field will be that “clear leader,” following the close of Entercom’s merger with CBS Radio.

“Radio One, Salem and Beasley are doing their own thing,” Ryvicker says. “Radio is a very fragmented industry. I do like NextRadio, but [Emmis CEO] Jeff [Smulyan]’s voice in the industry has shrunk.”

Ryvicker does like iHeart, although she doesn’t cover it; she says, “iHeart is making radio sexier again. I watch my kids, who do listen to the radio and do go to the iHeart app and download the songs they want to hear. [iHeart] just needs to get out of the debt burden that they and other public companies have. Then they might end up looking a lot like TV.” She may not realize it, but Ryvicker has a great model for how radio may gain against TV. “It’s a simpler product, with less disruption than TV,” she says. “Broadcast radio, Pandora, Sirius, iTunes — and at the end of the day it’s ‘the radio,’ and you still have a lot of people consuming radio. I don’t think that’s going to go away.”

With such a positive sentiment for an industry being ignored by much of Wall Street, the future is in radio’s hands.

Meanwhile, some big deals may very well come to fruition in the luxury suites of the Encore and Wynn Hotels in Las Vegas in the final week of April.

They will likely involve TV, and the industry is watching.

E T A D

NOVEMBER 15, 2017 • HARVARD CLUB, NYC RADIO’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

FORECAST GATHERS THE SMARTEST MINDS IN BROADCAST AND ADVERTISING TO FORECAST TRENDS, EXPECTATIONS, AND REVENUES FOR THE COMING YEAR. IT IS A MUST-ATTEND EVENT THE ONE TO SEE – AND BE SEEN AT!

JOIN FORECAST 2018 CO-CHAIR MARK GRAY

CEO, KATZ MEDIA GROUP

12 · R B R . C O M · S P R I N G 2 0 1 7

AN ‘OVER THE TOP’ FRIEND, OR A THREAT? Imagine going to just one place on your TV, mobile device or the internet, never having to click through 500+ channels or multiple platforms, just to find a new show you may have an interest in, or are already addicted to?

Does such a place exist? Yes. Should broadcast TV be concerned, or welcome the arrival of Orlando-based Spincast? It depends on your point of view.

For Spincast CEO Mario Castellanos, broadcast TV should be thrilled about the rollout of Spincast. That’s because he wants to partner with every local TV station in the U.S., and bring their unique content to a global audience.

What is Spincast? The company describes it as “a new hybrid, ad-supported TV network viewable through an app on any mobile device, smart TV and the internet.”

Castellanos launched Spincast in September 2015, and in the months since it has enjoyed a 5% per month organic viewership increase. At the same time, Spincast’s content providers have grown from three to 18.

As of today, Spincast has “on contract” between 10,000 and 12,000 titles that are awaiting upload. Additionally, this prefunded company is seeking further investors so it can grow at a much quicker rate.

“We’re just starting to get revenue in,” Castellanos says.

How? “Through advertising,” he replies.

The ad dollars Spincast gets may come from at least one method that could raise the ire of the entire television industry, just as Castellanos seeks to partner with broadcast TV for content.

Spincast has a partnership with Massachusetts-based Sports Bar Networks, which has made a business by contracting with different restaurant chains — including Dave & Buster’s — to have commercial breaks subbed out by content the bar would rather have shown.

“You are seeing a different set of commercials because that bar is promoting something that the bar wants reflected in the TV advertising,” Castellanos says.

How does he respond to those spending millions of dollars per year on advertising on the biggest of sporting events, including March Madness and the NBA Finals?

“That’s business,” he says. “Their deal was between them and the content provider, and we are free to do what we are doing.”

Sports Bar’s spot-swap technology is just one segment of what Spincast does, and it subcontracts this to the outfit led by CEO Rich Theriault.

Spincast is focused on growing its main

“Every other OTT platform has gone the sub route, and eventually there will be too many players seeking too many subscriptions.”

— Mario Castellanos

selling point: building a free-form standalone TV network through an app.

No deal with Roku presently exists, but Spincast is on Apple TV and on both Android and iOS phones. Content includes films, TV series, game shows, sporting events and “more to come from around the world.”

That being said, Spincast’s success ultimately comes down to content — and how it obtains it.

The other growth plan Spincast has is based on the fact that, unlike Hulu Plus, Amazon Video or Netflix, no subscription fee is required to view the programming that Castellanos seeks to provide users.

“Every other OTT platform has gone the sub route, and eventually there will be too many players seeking too many subscriptions,” Castellanos says. As a result, lesser players will likely disappear.

“The sub model causes churn,” Castellanos adds. “The customer comes to the realization that they are paying ‘X’ amount of money per month for one show.”

But that one show may be worth a monthly subscription, compared to an OTT platform that may offer little, or nothing, of interest to consumers.

Without revealing Spincast’s newest partner, Castellanos says Spincast is “in the process” of contracting with “a Californiabased major studio with a major presence in Orlando.” This could be Universal Studios, or it could be Disney. Either one would be a coup for Spincast, as it would gain access to a catalogue of titles dating back to the 1930s.

Where do local TV stations come into play?

“I want every single local newscast, and every locally produced program, on Spincast,” Castellanos says. “This is how Spincast is designed to complement local TV, and not necessarily compete with it.”

In a way, Spincast is an OTT version of WSBK-38, WTOG-44, WGN-9, KTLA-5 and the original “Superstation,” WTBS-17. “That’s exactly what we aim to be,” Castellanos says. “We are a mass-audience, ad-supported, on-demand superstation, with ads that are tailored to the viewer.”

S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 · R B R . C O M · 13

Top Trends in Media Tech

Curious as to what NAB Show vendors you may wish to connect with, even if you’re not in Las Vegas?

Here’s a quick review of some of the companies that could benefit your bottom line.

Closed-Captioning Option Put In NAB Show Spotlight

ENCO To Expand enCloud In Time For NAB Show

The fourth generation of ENCO’s enCaption closed-captioning system is getting a full rollout at the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas, and the newest version is designed to distinguish between multiple speakers — further reducing the labor needed for live captioning.

With speech-to-text voice recognition powering the fourth-generation enCaption3R4, “no re-speaking, voice training, supervision, or real-time captioners” are its key selling points.

ENCO notes that enCaption3R4 integrates a special algorithm with the intelligence to manage complex captioning situations where multiple subjects are speaking at once. It achieves this by isolating each speaker’s microphone throughout the live program.

The system supports up to six independent microphone feeds, and the speakers’ names can be preconfigured based on their assigned microphone position.

Multilingual support is also built into the algorithm, and includes personalized and/or localized spelling capabilities to ensure greater accuracy.

“With our new multi-speaker identification feature, hearing-impaired viewers will not only know what is being said, but also who is saying it,” said ENCO GM Ken Frommert.

While one of the audio inputs could be a feed from a production truck, the system treats that audio stream as a single speaker, even if multiple people are speaking. If a pre-recorded video clip is rolled during a live show, the captioning of that audio automatically takes precedence over anyone speaking on set.

Frommert adds, “The algorithm does its best to determine who ‘owns’ the conversation — such as the person that started it or who dominates the discussion — and ignores distractions like low voices and brief interruptions. As soon as the conversation shifts to the next speaker, the algorithm immediately and seamlessly transitions to focus on that speaker. Without this selective management process, it becomes very difficult to caption live events, such as roundtable or panel discussions, where people often compete to be heard and disrupt the flow of conversation.”

ENCO is again expanding its enCloud suite, and the tech firm says 2017 NAB Show attendees will have access to its WebDAD, “an even richer and fully virtualized toolset to remotely access and control the studio-based ENCO DAD radio automation systems.”

WebDAD is the first ENCO enCloud solution that brings total control of a radio station from any remote location, so long

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as there is a network connection. With a direct line to DAD in the studio, the broadcaster can control the complete on-air interface over IP via any standard web browser. This includes the ability to manage and drive on-air presentation, playlist manipulation, voice tracking, and other critical production tasks across the end-toend workflow.

Among other capabilities, the WebDAD can enable part-time, contract, and remote workers to access the playout system. This can enhance voicetracking opportunities for radio stations, ENCO notes.

“While radio conjures up images of DJs talking into mics and operating radio control panels, the reality is that we’re now moving in a direction where everything is OS-agnostic and increasingly virtualized,” says Frommert. “With WebDAD, the board operator no longer needs to be physically at the radio station or sitting in front of the automation system to control and playout a live radio show. They can now take full control of their radio station as if they were in the studio via a web browser on their iPad, mobile phone or other connected device.”

WebDAD is due to ship this summer.

ENCO will demonstrate WebDAD at Booth N2024 from April 24-27 in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Just In Time For NAB Show: Telos Releases Axia IP-Tablet A product that got its first sneak peek at IBC in 2015 as a concept will soon be ready for purchase from The Telos Alliance.

The parent company to Telos, Omnia, Axia, 25-Seven, Linear Acoustic, and Minnetonka will begin offering to radio stations the Axia IP-Tablet in April. The tablet is already scoring rave reviews; it recently won the 2017 Product of the Year Award from Salon de la Radio. The Axia IP-Tablet was designed by Livewire partner and Telos Alliance dealer Jérôme Gahery from IP-Studio specifically for use with Telos Alliance products.

Cam Eicher, director of sales at Telos Alliance, comments, “This product is a direct result of the open nature of the Livewire Partner program, where a developer can create something really cool that the entire industry can benefit from.”

Axia IP-Tablet is designed to simplify and aggregate control of several Telos Alliance devices, Eicher notes. Broadcasters can also use the IP-Tablet to manage user rights for device access, linking a user’s profile to his or her needs and access privileges. Because it can replace an external monitor needed by an Axia Fusion or Element console, the IP-Tablet software also frees up space and sightlines in the studio.

The Axia IP-Tablet runs on a Windows tablet. The elements are sold as individual modules, so customers can buy those that are most relevant and beneficial to their installation, including modules for Telos Systems, Omnia Audio, Fusion Console Control (a Basic version is also available), Axia Pathfinder and Metadata Link.

Broadcast-Grade Integrated IPTV In VITEC’s Spotlight VITEC, the advanced video encoding and streaming solutions company, is ready to demonstrate what it’s calling the industry’s first broadcast-grade integrated IPTV and digital signage platform — EZ TV 8.0 — at the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

The EZ TV 8.0 offering is designed for in-house distribution of TV feeds and pri-

vate video content and for managing IPTV streams and digital signage campaigns in sports venues.

VITEC’s EZ TV IPTV and Digital Signage Platform gives organizations the ability to centrally manage IPTV and signage content, automate video streaming workflows and signage campaigns, and deliver a cutting-edge streaming experience to desktop users, TVs, and mobile devices in sports venues.

Utilizing VITEC’s hardware-based IPTV and signage endpoints, users benefit from low-latency playback, real-time updating of electronic program guides, video on demand, time-shifted TV, user-controlled mosaic viewing of multiple channels in any format including H.264 and HEVC up to 4K, and real-time analytics. The integrated digital signage features offer signage authoring, administration and analytics.

VITEC will also showcase the newest generation of an HEVC codec for the MGW Ace end-to-end 4:2:2 HEVC encoder and decoder solution; its 4K HEVC MGW Vision encoder; and the House of Worship MultiSite Streaming Solution at the NAB Show, taking place April 24-27 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“VITEC continues to successfully lead the HEVC revolution in sports, enterprise, federal, and field contribution applications,” says VITEC CEO Philippe Wetzel. “We look forward to demonstrating new technology

developments for our video streaming solutions and appliances that continue to set the benchmark for quality, latency, and reliability.”

VITEC will be at Booth SL6005 at the 2017 NAB Show.

ATSC 3.0 Benefit Is NextGen TV’s NAB Show Epicenter Topic With completion of a next-generation broadcast TV standard now in sight, broadcasters and equipment suppliers will be highlighting the diverse capabilities of the ATSC 3.0 standard in the “NextGen TV Hub” at the 2017 NAB Show in Las Vegas.

Billed as the epicenter of next-generation television at the show, the “NextGen TV Hub: Powered by ATSC 3.0” will prominently highlight the capabilities of the forthcoming broadcast standard, with a comprehensive display in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center. The biggest headline: A live ATSC 3.0 broadcast will originate from local station KLSV-LD on Black Mountain in Las Vegas and will transmit a variety of 4K Ultra HDTV programming to NAB attendees. The broadcast will be received on an LG Electronics 4K Ultra HDTV set with an integrated ATSC 3.0 tuner at the NextGen TV Hub. “Television’s next generation brings broadcast and broadband together with a new, flexible, IP-based system,” says ATSC President Mark Richer. “Viewers enjoy more

vibrant images with HDR (High Dynamic Range) and 4K Ultra HDTV, immersive audio with new choices, mobile TV and broadcasts to the automobile and advanced emergency alerting to warn of danger.”

The NextGen TV Hub is a collaborative effort of the NAB, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC). Major sponsors include Pearl TV, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and LG Electronics.

NAB President Gordon Smith says, “Television is evolving to give both viewers and broadcasters more of what they love, and a stop at the NextGen TV Hub will show you what’s coming next. The NextGen TV Hub in the Grand Lobby will showcase the many ways that ATSC 3.0 will transform television, with new capabilities for broadcasters and programmers, like over-the-air addressable advertising and audience measurement. The content industry convenes in Las Vegas each April, and this year the emerging NextGen TV standard will be front and center.”

Wazee Digital Ramps Up For NAB Show At the NAB Show, Wazee Digital will highlight digital asset management solution Wazee Digital Core, a cloud-based system.

Core is the center of the Wazee Digital content management system, and manages video content acquisition, effective workflow, universal access, metadata management and automated delivery to any affiliate or any screen. It integrates multiscreen video logistics with workflow intelligence to give content owners top operational efficiencies and control.

At the NAB Show, Wazee Digital will demonstrate such new features as YouTube publishing, YouTube claiming, enhanced search and controlled vocabulary.

Live Event Services and Wazee Digital Media Hub Also highlighted at the 2017 NAB Show is Wazee Digital’s Live Event Services, designed for sports and live events. Live Event Services include content capture, management, and access; highlights production and publishing; an interview and highlights newswire; sponsor activation; and dynamic ingest and licensing.

Powering Live Event Services is Wazee Digital Media Hub, a centralized, webbased system enabling host broadcasters to capture live moments and make them immediately available for global highlights, publishing and syndication as the event is happening.

The Digital Media Hub web portal gives broadcasters administration and permissioning capabilities, while stakeholders get immediate access to broadcast-quality content; enhanced, searchable metadata; preview capabilities; and accelerated, oneclick downloading from a central location.

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