“It’s great to be back on a trade show floor, here with our community,” Sony Electronics President Neal Manowitz told an NAB Show news conference Sunday in his first Las Vegas appearance since taking the top Sony role in July when Mike Fasulo retired. “Since we last met here over three years ago, our industry has gone through a major, major change,” said Manowitz. “In many ways, the global pandemic has acted as an accelerant for great progress. We’ve seen an increased demand for high-quality content, a rapid expansion of streaming platforms and a shift to remote production workflows.”

Sinclair plans to offer HDR content in the Technicolor format for its Bally Sports regional sports networks beginning in Q3, it said Thursday. It plans demonstrations at the NAB Show, it said. SL-HDR1, part of the ATSC 3.0 suite of standards, uses a backward-compatible approach, letting content producers deliver a single video stream to new and legacy TVs that's viewable as HDR on newer devices and standard dynamic range on legacy sets, it said. Sinclair's "no compromise" approach renders "the highest quality viewing experience possible today, supplementing events captured in HDR," said President-Technology Del Parks. "On the distribution side, it is the smart way to deliver SDR and HDR content efficiently in a single, universal transmission format.”

Big Tech platforms increasingly attract news consumers and advertisers to reach those audiences, but Big Tech needs to start fairly compensating local broadcasters for distributing that news content on their platforms, the Big Four broadcast affiliates told FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, per a docket 14-261 ex parte post Friday. They cited the lack of regulatory parity between broadcasters and Big Tech, such as political advertising rules that apply to broadcasters but not tech platforms. They also continued their advocacy for virtual MVPDs to be subject to retransmission consent rules the same as traditional MVPDs; they brought up similar arguments with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioner Brendan Carr last month (see 2203170056).

Petitions to deny Standard General’s $8.6 billion purchase of Tegna and the related deal between Standard and Apollo Global management (see 2202220062) are due May 23 in docket 22-162, said a public notice Thursday. The deal involves a financing arrangement between Standard and Apollo and would leave Apollo with a nonvoting interest in Standard. Apollo already owns broadcaster Cox Media Group. Opposition filings in the proceeding are due June 7, replies June 17, the PN said. Comments on a foreign ownership request for the deal are due May 23, replies June 7, said a separate public notice. Teton Parent, a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, is seeking FCC permission to be more than 25% foreign owned because 50% of Standard General's equity is controlled through investment funds in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands (see 2203110066).

The FCC should link the sunset of ATSC 3.0 multicasting arrangements to a station’s sunset of its ATSC 1.0 signal rather than imposing a five-year time limit, said NAB in calls with Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and 10 other Media Bureau staffers March 25, said an ex parte filing Thursday, posted in ECFS Friday. “Any effort to freeze broadcasters” by restricting their content to what they aired under 1.0 “can only harm consumers,” NAB said. The FCC also should allow a station’s license to cover multicast streams that are broadcast only in 3.0 rather than simulcast under both standards, the filing said.

The FCC approved and deleted two adjudicatory Media Bureau items from the agenda for Thursday’s meeting, said a deletion notice Wednesday. Since the items were restricted before being approved, the deletion notice doesn’t specify what they were, but an FCC spokesperson confirmed they were orders issued Tuesday on a tentative noncommercial educational selectee (see 2204190068) and upholding a Media Bureau ruling on an FM translator (see 2204190060).

A status conference is set for May 17 on a Tennessee AM station's license over the owner’s conviction for tax fraud, said an order Wednesday. Descriptions of discovery and prehearing motions are due May 13, the order said (see 2203210047). The matter was designated for hearing over WJBE(AM) Powell owner Joseph Armstrong’s 2017 conviction for improper tax filings on profits he generated by selling cigarette tax stamps after a state tax increase he voted for as a state legislator.

The launch of the Run3TV web platform enables broadcasters to offer two-way interactive services and streaming content to over-the-air viewers for first time, PearlTV said Tuesday. Pearl, which developed the platform with various technical partners, will launch Run3TV through a subsidiary, the ATSC 3.0 Framework Alliance. Run3TV gives broadcasters the ability to “leverage” 3.0's new A/344 interactive content standard to create television applications that enhance OTA viewing “with interactive and on-demand content delivered over broadband,” said Pearl Managing Director Anne Schelle. Run3TV’s web-based platform architecture “enables stations to develop, innovate, and differentiate at the application services layer, allowing a consistent viewer experience” across all 3.0-compliant receiver devices, said Pearl. “The broadcaster controls the product vision, audience engagement, and customer experience,” said Pearl, and broadcasters can choose their technical partners and draw from the contributions of the Run3TV “developer community,” it said.

Evoca, working with several “technology partners,” successfully transmitted TV content using ATSC 3.0's “cross-polarization” functionality, a first for the U.S., it said Tuesday. Evoca touted the accomplishment as “a new way of transmitting TV signals that could dramatically change the number of channels available from over-the-air broadcasters,” including higher bandwidth for 4K transmission options. “This week on Channel 35 in Boise we successfully demonstrated the creation and transmission of a MIMO signal,” said Evoca CEO Todd Achilles, referring to multiple-input and multiple-output. “MIMO has the potential to dramatically increase the available payload for TV broadcasts, possibly even doubling the amount of data that a broadcaster can send to improve choice and robustness.” Evoca’s MIMO cross-polarized TV broadcast involved simultaneous transmission of two discrete streams within one 6 MHz channel, said the company. Its partners included Rohde & Schwarz, Enensys Technologies, Kathrein Broadcast, Avateq and Televes. Though MIMO broadcasts have been demonstrated in other countries, it has mostly been as a “proof-of-concept effort,” said Achilles. Evoca intends to “make full use of the potential for MIMO transmission and reception,” he said.

Tests of GeoBroadcast Solutions geotargeted radio technology show it works in a variety of environments, said National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters President Jim Winston and Roberts Radio CEO Steve Roberts in meetings last week with FCC Media Bureau Chief Holly Saurer and aides to both Commissioner Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington, according to an ex parte filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-401. The agency opened up a new round of comments in the proceeding Monday. A report on the tests from broadcast engineers Roberson and Associates said the geotargeted broadcasts were narrowly targeted even in terrain without many impediments to signal propagation. The additional tests were performed on the technology in response to questions from the Media Bureau, the filing said. The tests also showed the tech doesn’t affect emergency alert system broadcasts, the filing said. “Giving broadcasters who wish to the ability to deploy geo-targeting technology can give minority and smaller broadcasters a new tool with which to compete,” the filing said. NAB, iHeartMedia, and other companies opposed the GBS proposal (see 2204070055).