Sinclair says that KVCW, a CW affiliate in Las Vegas, will be the first of its stations to be broadcast with ATSC 3.0 on May 26.
TV Technology reports that KVCW was originally planned to launch 3.0 broadcasts last month, but plans changed as a result of coronavirus. Now, viewers are seeing a message at the bottom of their screens when tuning into the channel, saying that new equipment may be required to watch after May 26.
“Out of sheer caution, we decided to take a pause to determine the nature of COVID-19 engagement that was required—a lot of broadcasters had to take a step back,” said Mark Aitken, senior vice president of advanced technology for Sinclair. “We really needed to sign off the 1.0 hosting players and it took a little extra time. We have a whole slew of deployments coming along, this will be the first of several.”
Those “hosting players” include three stations in the Las Vegas area that will host 1.0 content:
- KTNV – a Scripps-owned affiliate, will host CW programming
- KLAS – a Nexstar-owned affiliate, will host TBD, ThisTV, Comet
- KSNV – a Sinclair-owned affiliate, will host NBC
As TV Technology notes, the ability to view Next Gen TV content will depend on when devices with receivers become available. While some companies are working to bring those devices to market, we can expect to see more news about upcoming devices in the coming weeks and months.
ATSC 3.0 is set to launch in over 60 cities across the US this year.
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