Terrestrial television broadcasting has changed very little since the first over the air broadcasts were conducted. Technology has changed: black and white to color, analog to digital, improved compression algorithms. But generally the application has remained free to air television transmission to the masses.

All that is about to change, however, with the realization of the new ATSC 3.0 standard. At its core, the standard still provides a means to transmit programming over the air to consumers. But if broadcasters think this is simply a new way to do what they’ve always done—they are unlikely to be broadcasters in the long term.

ATSC 3.0 consists of standards designed to allow broadcasters to achieve the goal of “anytime, anywhere” content already embraced by content providers and cable/satellite/telco operators. It allows them to deliver different content based on viewer preferences. And it allows them to achieve all this by leveraging some of the technologies currently utilized by mobile operators—bringing the possibility of future cooperation into the realm of possibility.

This presentation will focus on some of the new applications expected to be launched by broadcasters leveraging the ATSC 3.0 standard, and the application already commercially launched in Korea. The hope is to start broadcasters elsewhere in the world thinking about new ways to leverage their own existing (or perhaps newly modified) standards in order to realize similar opportunities in their own markets.

Lisa Hobbs joined Ericsson in 1997 after spending nine years in the satellite communications and video compression divisions of Scientific-Atlanta (now Cisco.) As Vice President, Compression Commercial Portfolio Strategy for Ericsson, she shares global responsibility for defining the direction of the compression portfolio across all of the market segments in which Ericsson has a presence, with a focus on market direction and ROI.