WASHINGTON, D.C.—Fresh off a successful effort to elevate the quality of its video and audio NextGen TV signal to Louisville, Ky., viewers watching WAVE-TV’s Kentucky Derby coverage with High Dynamic Range (HDR) and immersive audio, Gray Television is at it again.
This time the broadcast group will offer NextGen TV viewers in eight of its NBC markets the Paris Olympics in HDR when they open Wednesday, July 24. Viewers in three of those markets also will be able to listen to immersive audio of the games.
As with the Derby, the stations will upconvert the network’s standard dynamic range HD video feed and audio mix to Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos immersive sound.
While the effort will enhance the viewing experience of NextGen TV households, the endeavor takes on added significance because the station group sees the broadcasts as another critical step in promoting NextGen TV to the public.
In this interview, Rob Folliard, senior vice president of government relations and distribution at Gray TV, discusses the station group’s HDR and immersive audio deployment, its plans beyond sports, when it might begin offering the enhancements as part of its NextGen TV broadcasts of other network partners and why broadcasters should waste no time stepping up their efforts to promote NextGen TV.
(An edited transcript.)
TVTech: How many local Gray Television stations will be offering the Paris Olympics as NextGen TV with HDR and immersive sound?
Rob Folliard: We have eight NBC affiliates that are broadcasting a 3.0 signal right now. I expect all of them will be up and running in HDR by the Paris Olympics. I know for certain at least three of the eight will also have immersive audio—Dolby Atmos.
TVT: The Paris Olympics deployment of NextGen TV HDR and immersive audio follows a similar deployment for this year’s Kentucky Derby at Gray TV’s WAVE-TV in Louisville. What lessons did you learn from that experience?
RF: A lot of it is related to the marketing and promotion side. We marketed and promoted the heck out of it, and we saw a reaction locally.
We also partnered with a consumer electronics store as well to give away NextGen TVs, and that was successful. We're copying a lot of the promotional effort that we did in Louisville for the Derby. We’re using the Olympics, as well, just to let people know about NextGen TV and create a buzz.
At this stage, that's the most important thing: to let viewers know what we're doing and creating that buzz so people want to buy TVs. Then, if we can turn that into some advertising campaigns in partnership with local retailers, all the better. I think it really was the promotion where the Kentucky Derby project was successful, and we want to model that for the Paris Olympics.
TVT: Can you offer a little more detail on how you are promoting NextGen TV for the Olympics?
RF: We're already promoting the Olympics, so now we're including tags and other info in those promotions that say, “And you can watch the Olympics in HDR.” So, a lot of it we're doing anyway, but now we’re also adding the HDR message. In those markets where there's immersive audio, then we’re adding the Dolby Atmos immersive audio message as well.
We are also promoting HDR and immersive audio online on our station websites where viewers can learn more. There isn’t a national retail partner, but ideally each market will find a partner.
TVT: Like the Kentucky Derby, your NBC affiliates for the Olympics will be offering the public HDR in the form of Dolby Vision and immersive audio in the form of Dolby Atmos. How did you decide on Dolby’s implementations?
RF: Dolby's been the gold standard for decades. So that was pretty easy. Certainly, on the audio side of things. Dolby has been a great partner for NextGen in general. They've been supportive the whole way. They have involved themselves. They have made themselves available, and they provided a lot of information for our promotion and our marketing as well. I know Dolby is partnering with some other broadcasters promoting the Olympics.
Dolby's aggressive, and they want to promote NextGen TV, and that goes hand in hand with what we want.
TVT: It won’t be long until we are past the Olympics and into college football and the NFL. Will there be the same technical setup for football? NFL? College?
RF: That's the goal. We are working with our network partners at CBS, Fox and ABC in order to get the necessary approvals. As you know, there are many different special sauces of HDR, and to the extent any network has a preference—like NBC has a specific LUT [Look Up Table] that they want everyone to use—great. We'll do that if the network has certain specs. We want to work with them on that to make sure we don't get crosswise with anyone.
TVT: What are Gray TV’s plans with respect to other markets where your stations are affiliated with other networks? Are there plans to follow suit in those markets?
RF: Absolutely. NBC was the priority because of the Olympics. We saw the Olympics as an obvious tentpole segment in August, so NBC had to go first. Then, we expect to have everybody up by the fall for football. Because, you know, nothing moves the needle –nothing makes TV sell—like football.
The bulk of the TV sets are always sold in the second half of the year, in the fall, and then in the winter during the holiday buying season. It's because of football. So, the promotional campaign will work perfectly well, making it available for football.
TVT: What about the rest of the schedule—beyond sports?
RF: With NBC, we're already doing it 24/7. In Louisville, the moment we turned on the upconversion, it was the full 24/7 stream. It was all of our news, all of our syndicated content, all of our local content and all of NBC’s content.
It'll be the same thing with Fox, CBS and ABC. It'll be the full 24/7 stream that'll be upconverted to HDR so when there are other high profile events in the fall, they'll all be in HDR.
TVT: Obviously, there’s more to NextGen TV than HDR and immersive audio. There’s also program restart and interactive and on-demand content that Gray’s looking to take advantage of? How is that playing out?
RF: They are all coming. Restart is on our menu of things to get launched in the relatively near future. We aren't there just yet, but I expect it'll be up in the next couple of months. At that point, there’s another NextGen TV feature that is promotable, consumer-friendly and is the type of feature that's going to make TVs sell.
Restart is the most popular feature in Europe with their HbbTV. We'll lean on the lessons that our fellow broadcasters in Europe learned by promoting that.
Many people from all the different departments within Gray will be meeting within the next couple of weeks to really strategize on how we want to promote this. What can we do? What do we think consumers will like?
We want to get everyone in the company thinking about what NextGen can do. They can take that back to their departments and their teams and start coming up with ideas.
You know, we've now built it out to where it makes sense to start experimenting with NextGen TV features to see what sticks. Given the viewership data we're able to pull for NextGen sets, it's going to be very quick and easy for us to tell what was successful. We'll be able to learn much more quickly than we ever could in the past.
TVT: Pearl TV, to which Gray belongs, has promoted NextGen TV to the public for several years, especially around the holiday buying season. Here Gray is promoting it in conjunction with major sporting events like the Derby and the Olympics. What’s your message to other broadcasters when it comes to promoting NextGen TV?
RF: I think it's critical that we all start promoting NextGen TV, and we all make it more visible. This is the future of our industry. The DTV standard was developed in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. We can't continue to broadcast with the best technology of 1988, and that's what we’re doing. We need to move forward to a modern IP-based technology. It's not 1988 anymore.
We're not just competing with ourselves. We're competing with Google, Apple, YouTube and Amazon. If they have a better product than we do, then we're going to be in trouble. If they have a better technology than we do, then we're in trouble. We need to keep pace with our real competitors out there, and NextGen is the way to do it.
But not only do we need to complete this transition, we also need to let consumers know. We need to make consumers excited to buy TVs to watch NextGen because it doesn't do any good if we complete this transition and nobody owns a TV.
We've got a short window to get all of this done and to remain competitive with the streamers who have the advantage of an IP-based system where they can run targeted ads, they can run addressable advertising. We need to catch up, and NextGen TV is our last, best opportunity to do so.
