Why Low Power TV Stations are Rejecting Nextgen TV / ATSC 3.0 - with LPTV's Frank Copsidas

Hey everybody, it's Lon Cybin. Today we're going to be learning about low power TV stations with Frank Copsidus who is the president of the low power TV broadcast association here in the United States. Now low power TV can transmit just as much content as a bigger full power station can. But they just can't use as much transmission power to do it. So they typically serve more localized audiences, but still pretty large given the amount of power that they're able to transmit. And what's interesting about these stations is that the cost of owning and operating one is nowhere near as expensive as one of the full power stations. And as you'll hear from Frank, there's some optimism about maybe some technological changes on the way that might make this a very viable overthe-air option. So without further ado, let's get into the interview. All

right, joining me now is Frank Copsidus, who is the president of the LPTV Association. And uh first of all, Frank, thanks for joining us. They call you Super Frank. Why is that? — Oh, I leave that to your imagination. One thing that I've discovered about the association because I've been getting all of your emails over the last couple of months is that there seems to be a lot of optimism um a lot of excitement and that's not something you would associate with the broadcast TV industry right now given all the complexities of the business. Why do you think that is? — I think there are two parts to the TV industry. Full power and low power. I think full power has a lot of challenges in front of it right now and low power has a lot of opportunities. And if you look at the um filing window that happened in March uh where you could for the first time in well over a decade apply for a new station. There were 2300 applications. There are only, well, not only, there are 5,300 currently licensed LPTV class A translator stations and 2,300 requests for new licenses. So, I would say that's a pretty good showing. — That is And clearly there's some desire here to get more stations out. I guess it's been a while since there's one of these auctions, right? So, there could be some pent-up demand, but — it's not even an auction. It's just a filing. — Okay. So, they — So, for $910, you file, — okay, — where you want to go. And it depends if somebody else filed for that exact place — and you're interfering with each other and then it you either settle it or the FCC brings it to an auction. — I see. Gotcha. So, — so some of these parties will work out in some way to share the space, — right? And if you apply for a place and nobody MXes you or interferes with you, — it's yours. — That's awesome. So, let's back up and talk about what low power TV is in the first place. For those who are not aware

of it, I'm guessing low power means that you're not transmitting as much power perhaps as one of the bigger stations transmit. But does that mean you're not getting out as far? I'm guessing in some areas it's probably a pretty good reach. — Yeah. Right. So, the US is like the only place that has low power TV and uh low power TV in the US is what most full power stations are in Europe. — So, we are limited to 15,000 watts, 15KW right now. And that's good for about a 30 mile radius, which is pretty respectable. So when you're in Boston or Montana or wherever, 30 miles pretty well covers your metro. — So you can actually get competitive reach then to a bigger station with more resources. — Absolutely. As opposed to low power like FM, which only goes a mile or two. Right. we go a full 30 miles and the FCC is open to the suggestion that we increase be allowed to increase our power. — Now, what about cable TV? Because obviously there's this big to-do right now which we'll get into in a few minutes about — I'm sorry, what? — Before my time. — Oh, before your time. Right. Um but as far as cable TV is concerned, I mean right typically with a tip a regular broadcast station, they can go to the cable uh company and say you must carry us or we will charge you to carry us. Uh you don't have that same ability to get yourself on cable. — We do not. — So it's strictly broadcast and broadcast only. Unless some cable company wants to be generous and pick up your signal and carry it if they want to. — Apps, — right? — Yeah. — On the web. And now you own a number of stations throughout the country. — Yes, I own seven. — Seven of them. And one of them I think is here in my home state of Connecticut if I'm not mistaken. So what do you broadcast on these TV stations? — Uh we broadcast France 24. — That's our main um broadcast signal. And then uh there are a couple other depending on the actual market. Uh it depends where uh we have programmers who lease stations. — Okay. — So different locations have different

stations. — And how much bandwidth do you get for one of these channel allocations? — Six megahertz. — So you could presumably transmit as many sub channels perhaps as a larger broadcaster could then. — Oh, we're all the same when it comes to that. We all have six megahertz. We all use basically the same equipment. So, um, Bridge News, for example, will have 16 channels on the air within their six megahertz. — So, you could do pres presumably one, you know, HD station and a bunch of 480p stations and have a good amount of content that you can get out there. — Now, the standard now though, you're required to use ATSC 1. 0, which is the current broadcast standard. — Yes. Everything's 1. 0. We can go to ATSC 3. 0. — And have you done that yet? I guess you haven't, but others. — I did. I tried it in Boston. I went uh we stayed on it for 17 months and never got it working right. — Why is that? Was it just too complicated to implement or is it — It never did what it was supposed to do.

And so that's the problems with ATSC 3. 0. It is so complicated, so heavy that to get it set up to work correctly is quite the challenge. And we did that oh, I want to say three years ago. — Mhm. — Four to three years ago. And it was a nightmare. We spent a lot of money bringing people in. We changed the equipment out. It wouldn't work. And was this not and were you even encrypting the station here or this was just to get the baseline right? — Was the baseline? — So even without the encryption it was already complicated. And — correct. — Are you required to work with the A3SA to develop your station's ID number even if you're not encrypting? — No. — Okay. So at least you didn't have that. — Okay. — Right. and they charge, which makes broadcasting, you go from a pre a free public service to charging, — which isn't why you're given frequencies to start off with, — right? You always have to go to a corporation for permission to be able to execute your license, right? — Broadcasters have to pay an annual fee for their license and then receivers have to pay a fee to be an authorized receiver. So in the new world here, it's not the same as it was with ATSC 1. 0. So I see that the LPTV association has been pushing for alternatives. So obviously ATSC 1. 0 works. Um you're also looking at 5G TV. On the ATSC 1. 0 side, you know, we're seeing the FCC experimenting with the idea of allowing you to go beyond meg 2 and maybe have meg 4 or some other codec on the air. Is that something the LPTV Association supports? — Yes, absolutely. So, we believe that our broadcasters know their communities best and can determine should it be ATSC 1. 0, 3. 0 or 5G broadcast. They can make their own determinations. So, uh we support all formats and think the local broadcaster should make their own decision. And then obviously the market will decide and that whatever viewers are tuning in to they will. — Absolutely. — Right. So 3. 0 the full powers have asked for a mandate which they did not get but we don't want as low power TV LPTV we do not want a mandate. We want a choice. We don't want to be forced to go to a platform that is a way too expensive for LPTV and b hasn't proved stable — and that's certainly been the issue even with the big broadcasters and as a viewer hasn't been stable for me here either trying to tune into it and I've

seen a lot of um support that your organization has been raising for 5G TV um at the moment of course — 5G broadcast and right Now there's no real way to receive any of that but still you see that as a potential alternative. So tell me more about that. — Absolutely. So 5G broadcast is part of the 3GPP standards. So you say what's 3GPP? It's the worldwide standard organization that does many things for satellite for cell for now broadcast. It's a worldwide standard. So the reason your cell phone, for example, works in Connecticut or China or India or down the street is because there's one standard and it's a worldwide standard. So it's all compatible. Satellite is now moving to 3GPP standards and 3GPP has come up with a broadcast standard which technically is called, are you ready? 4G, LTE, 5G broadcast. — Okay, just pile them on, right? — Just pile them on. So, it is completely separate from cell. You do not need a SIM card. You need you don't need a subscription. It goes into your smartphone in a different frequency band. The same way satellite is separate, cell is separate, broadcast is separate. So, we do not have commercial receivers out yet. It is a brand new platform, but next year Qualcomm has announced they will have it out.

— That's a pretty big deal if Qualcomm supports that because obviously they're the chipset on most phones. So, presumably in a future phone variant. Um, and I'm guessing it's not that hard of a lift because the frequencies are not all that far apart in the sense that where the TV frequencies end, the cell phones are pretty much right there. So, so your phone is capable of receiving this and rather than pay a fee for a cellular subscription, theoretically I could walk into Walmart, buy a cheap burner smartphone and it could receive a data cast essentially, which would be your TV station. — Sure. So, you have three basic uses of 5G broadcast. One is linear regular programming and it can be either video or audio. So you could do radio that way as well. The second thing is first responder solutions. So first of all, an emergency alert can be put out to the entire coverage area within 1 half second. So currently the way cell works, it's all uniccast or onetoone. So if you have 100,000 subscribers, it has to send out a 100,000 individual signals. We send out one goes to everybody at once. We also tend to continue operating even when cell goes down. So if you look at the Texas floods from last year, we would have kept working and been able to send out alerts not only to the public but encrypted alerts to first responders. And then the other big thing in the first responder world is we can actually provide them with video content of what's going on. So generally your 911 dispatch centers have all kinds of video feeds coming in, but the dispatcher then has to translate verbally what's going on. Now they can actually put it out. So basically we're turning a dispatch center into a TV control room, — right? Right. So you could have a scenario where there's a big emergency going on. You could have a sliver of your bandwidth which is still the same six mehz I'm guessing, right? Um so for the public could have that segment and then you could be broadcasting essentially to every first responder in the field uh their video feed so that you can very quickly pivot on that. And I guess too that makes a lot of sense because if most smartphones in the next generation have this cap reception capability, everybody's got the device already whether they know it or not. Um, so that seems to make a lot of sense. So, so is the FCC on board with this or would they still require you at this point to have the ATSC1 signal? — Well, uh, currently, actually two weeks ago, we went on the air with WCRN in Boston in 5G broadcast as an exper under an experimental license. and we have a year we're putting WWO in Boston on the air with 5G broadcast and then we're doing a lot of field tests of frequency bonding. How do they hand off to each other? All the tests in the lab are great but until you get in the field you really don't know. So, we're testing this and it's rolling out worldwide, too. TDF in France has said by 2029, they will cover 90% of France with 5G broadcasting. — And uh HC2 launched a station in Vegas as well in 5G broadcast. So, we're launching them really for test right now and we have tested in stadiums and can localize emergency alerts. Um, it's pretty interesting. The third thing we can do with 5G broadcast is data and data offload. — Interesting. — So, beyond just video, right? Yep. — Correct. Well, uh, even with video, so to speak, because if you go to a stadium, a lot of times you can't make a cell call, right? — Because everybody's trying to use it. Even though the cell carriers are bringing in cows and extra capacity, it's still not enough. What we can do is actually stream it all down in uh into your phone, which would get you off the cell network, which would free up the cell network uh to for calls — and that could actually help for emergency situations in a localized stadium environment too, right? Because you could send everybody the same message and know that they get it. So that could be beneficial. — So we don't compete with Cell, we complement Cell. For example, there's a city that needs 4,000 first responder smartphones updated every night with the next day's plans. — Cell at this point is updating about half of them at best — on a good day, right? — We can do all of them every night overnight because again, it's one to many, not one to one. So, what's interesting about this as I'm thinking here is that you're looking at a standard that internationally will likely be in let's say in Europe in France every phone's going to have this 5G reception capability. Um, so manufacturers will — broadcast — 5G broadcast, right? 5G broadcast capability and so you will have entire markets that will have this. So I'm guessing from a cost standpoint to get these recept receiver or receiving capable devices to the US u much like we saw with USBC and Europe adopting that power uh connector as it as its standard that became the standard here. Uh do you see European adoption as a means of getting the US market uh to get a few more receivers than we have now? Well, the funny part is our frequency band which uh so under 3GPP 5G broadcast is band 108 but they now split it into two bands 11213. 113 is Europe which is 606 to 698 megahertz and the US band 112 is 498 to 608 megahertz. So those um uh frequencies are already on the chip in your phone. — They're just not opened up, — right? — So really there's no cost involved here. — They just need to be opened up. For US phones, the antenna does need to go up to 6 in from it's like 4. 75, but that is not a huge deal as a phone is being made, — right? And I got plenty of room in here. So they could certainly make

it work. — So let me ask you this. You know, we're at this kind of at this point now where, you know, big broadcast is pushing ATSC 3. 0. They want a mandate. Um the case is essentially with the FCC right now. They certainly haven't ruled one way or the other. Um LPTV has made, I think, a pretty good case here for 5G broadcast to be uh something as an alternative. Where do you see the FCC going here? I mean certainly they're keeping their cards very close to the chest. I know you had one of the media bureau chiefs at the event you had at NAB. Any indicators as to where you think things might go? — I think they're keeping an open mind, very open mind. Uh we are proponents along with CTA that the full power stations if they want a mandate for 3 0 let them have it but don't take us with them as low power — and we've been um getting that message out over and over. So I think we st we're in a good point good position. Uh certainly Congress is looking at 3GPP standards for satellite cell and broadcast. So that's going on. The fire code, national fire codes looking at it for distribution in DA for distributed antennas uh to get a signal, an emergency signal to everybody right away. There's a lot of momentum to get things done that we can do that hasn't been done before. Going back to ATSC30, the full powers designed this from scratch and they made a very conscious decision not to put it in cell phones or make it 3GPP compliant. They tried to get it compliant. No, because it's not a worldwide standard. It's a regional standard. So, they designed, they dug their own grave, so to speak, when it comes to receiving it on a smartphone, — right? And especially because everybody's got a smartphone. You would think you would make a standard that would work with the device that most consumers are currently purchasing, right? And that brings me to this question. — They did come out with a phone, — but and they were saying for India they were going to put out a million. You have a billion people, — right? — So, what's a million phones? Right. — Right there. — It's a whole different phone that people It's just not going to happen. — And on that note, especially related to consumer adoption, um you know, consumers are clearly moving to streaming. Um we're seeing a lot of cord cutting away from cable. Uh certainly that move has hurt the broadcast the big broadcasters the full power ones substantially because they rely so much upon retransmission fees uh to be able to do that. For example, in my home state of Connecticut on my cable bill that I used to get uh I was spending or paying $48 a month um just for that those retrans fees and as people cut the cord those fees of course for them reduce and then they keep raising

the fee level. It's not a very good business model. Uh what do you know again I keep seeing all this optimism on the LPTV group and there seems like there's a good sense that there's a path forward. Um where do you see this going? Are younger people tuning back into overtheair television again? Do you anticipate that they might if their phone could receive it? Uh what's the business plan moving forward to keep this uh this medium alive? So, what I find really fascinating is people who grew up watching TV with rabbit ears are the hardest ones to convince it's still around. — They had they drank the cable Kool-Aid of the 80s and 90s that you wouldn't get TV without cable. So, they were astounded that it's still around. And they're like, "But you mean just an antenna like I used to have? " Yeah, just an antenna. And they're like, "Yeah, but that won't work. Why won't it work? " Of course it works, but you know, and they're completely confused. What's interesting is under 35 is like, "Oh my god, we've discovered this brand new thing we never knew about and it's free. " And like I live in New York. I'm getting over 90 stations over the air and 90 channels for free including all the majors. Right. So, uh that's interesting. The other interesting thing linear TV is definitely dying. So, except for sports, breaking live sports, breaking news and religious. Those are the three that are pretty stable. However, in France, they've been working on short form programming, uh, anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes on linear streams, and they've actually started picking up quite an audience in under 25. — That's interesting, isn't it? Because that they're watching that on a streaming side, certainly nonlinearly, but to be able to tune into linear and get that. Yeah. I've noticed too even like uh this morning I just you know just on my YouTube feed ABC News popped up with a like an 8 minute and 45 second newscast. So a lot more digestible than the 30, right? So is that something your members are experimenting with domestically? — I think we're starting to experiment with a lot of things. There's a station, a group in Alabama that has uh started educational programs in high schools getting students involved in broadcasting and it's been explosive. It's amazing because in Connecticut, we certainly tried it with um charter and public access and at best you'd get 10 people, you know, a year, — right? 10 students, high school students a year to go out and try this down there. It's really catching on. — So, it might be regional in how it and how it kind of rolls out. So, there's — I think it's more the people behind it — and their enthusiasm and what the program's about. So, we showed a video at NAB that the kids made and it was really good. and they're doing the news, they're doing the local news, they're interviewing people, they're learning the trade and it's really heartwarming to see it happen, — right? And that's what the public interest is all about, right? I mean, if you think about what broadcast is supposed to be lo local, right? And and certainly the added educational benefit of having kids learn the trade craft, I think, is really important. — Don't forget the emergency alerts, too, — right? — Critical and which you can't get sometimes. You know, I had, you know, just as an aside, you know, when we had a, you know, it wasn't a big deal here in Connecticut. We get snowstorms, but we had a snowstorm that was sizable. And right as the storm hit, uh, they had an issue with the encryption on the ADTH ATSC3 tuners, and I was unable to get the weather report on that encrypted device that was supposedly going to work with the new standard, and it didn't work for the next week after that. Right? So, those are the sorts of things that I think if you were broadcasting to a phone, it might work. And before we go, you know, one of the things that I was I keep thinking about when I think of LPTV and kind of this grassroots effort, this independent in many ways effort that you're leading here, um, you know, I think of that weird Yanovic movie uh called UHF where he gets the TV station. I'm sure you've seen the movie where he gets the TV station and he creates this really quirky, funky thing in his local market and builds this huge thing. Beyond what you just

described, are there other promising practices that you're seeing where people are experimenting locally and finding some audiences that may have surprised you? — Not that I'm aware of other than what the high school students have done. — Uh I'm sure it's happening. We don't get into content too much. — Not at this point. We're too focused on regulation, — right? uh an organization and let me tell you as a volunteer in that organization it takes up a lot of my time. — It sounds — so it focuses we focus in a lot of investors are starting to pop up from the outside. It is probably the least expense. It is by far the least expensive spectrum available period. — And it reaches the same size audience as the more expensive spectrum. So it's got potential. Well, it's not even that. It's uh at the last auction, which was now what, eight years ago? Nine years ago, the cost of the mobile carriers spent $14 of population count to get frequency bandwidth. In currently, you can buy an LPTV station at a dollar. — Wow. — Perk. So, it's the same frequency band. It used to be TV. That's what they took and sold to the cell carriers, right? And it sold for 14, but you can buy it for one right now. — And I think there's probably some potential there given that if every smartphone in the future is able to receive this signal without any subscription, that might be a huge base of potential audience that doesn't uh exist. How do stations make money now? Um I'm assuming advertising obviously is part of that. Do they have agreements with some of these networks that they're carrying? How does it work? — Well, there are two ways. One is advertising which has gone down the tubes. Unless you're totally local. — If you're totally local, local stores will support local businesses, right? So, and if you're like the Alabama station that's heavily involved in its community, people know about the station. they watch the station. So yes, there is revenue potential in advertising if you stay local. You're not going to get the national buys, but you will get tremendous local buys. The other uh way is for programmers who lease out your channels. So, as I said, you could do as many as 16. On my stations, we do maybe six uh to keep the signal quality up. But they all pay us every month to be on the station for us to carry them. So that's the other revenue model. Are there uh revenue models that make you huge money? Absolutely not. And that's why it's dollar or pop count right now. — Right. So in other words, for anyone looking to get into this, you're not going to become a rich uh empire builder here, but you might have fun doing it and at least be sustainable. Well, you're not going to in the next year or two years, right? — But as soon as it goes into phones, the models completely change. And yes, I feel that it's going to be like a win beyond belief. — Grand slam. — I And I'm with you. I I see some real potential here, especially again just given the fact that you could turn this into a TV receiver and it's just there whenever wherever you are, it's there. And I think that's um that's going to be pretty powerful. So, we'll have to keep an eye on that. As they say in the TV business, stay tuned, right? — Stay tuned. — Yeah, stay tuned. — Right. — Well, Frank, thank you very much for joining us. This was really insightful to learn about really a whole another segment of TV that I think people don't think about. And I guess we'll just keep an eye on what the FCC's got in store for everybody because that will ultimately uh decide a lot. and hopefully uh — hopefully they spare the low power folks from having to adopt something that might be very prohibitive but allow perhaps a lot more flexibility on the lower power bands and I I'm convinced that LPTV is the future of TV. I think it's got real potential to bring that locality back and a little bit of quirkiness, too. So, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next. So if you want to find out more come to our website right lptvba for broadcast association. So lptvba. org and for 5G broadcast information go to 5gbc. org which is uh 5G uh broadcast. — Great. Well, we will definitely send people that way and maybe we'll come back and do something later about how you start a TV and what you TV station and what you need to do it because I think that might be a fun video. — We could do that and have some fun. — Let's do that. Next time you're in Connecticut, I'll come by and visit your station. Let's set that up. That'll be fun. — Excellent. Done. — All right. Frank, thank you very much for joining us and uh we look forward to following the journey here. So, there you go. That is Low Power TV in a nutshell. I want to thank Frank for joining us and telling us all about it. We're going to do more on this topic. I do want to go tour one of these stations locally here and see what it's all about. So, there is going to be more to come on this topic because I do think there is a future for low power TV here in the US. That will do it for this one. Until next time, this is Lon Sidman. Thanks for watching.