One of the top stories to come out of the NAB Convention is how Next Generation TV (ATSC 3.0) could become a threat to radio, according to Tom Taylor of the very popular industry newsletter, Tom Taylor Now. Taylor points out that the new mobile-friendly standard may compete with radio in a recent lead article.
Here’s the take-away we had at LowPower.TV:
- Increased capacity could super-serve local groups with traditional video programming, and allow for lost cost advertising dollars, that might currently be spent on radio.
- The added capacity could also mean that one transmitter could include many, many audio-only streams— with a chip that can fit into a smartphone. While that doesn’t make an FM chip obsolete, they might be beating the proprietary “HD Radio” format to the punch with a better product.
Taylor included some licensee perspectives, meaning the idea mill is churning.
I’m developing a suite of audio channels right now for my Legacy-ATSC, so I’m on board too. (There’s a video component to what I’m doing too, so i can’t say “audio-only” officially)