NextGen TV set to open new revenue streams for broadcasters

As U.S. broadcasters deploy NextGen TV, industry stakeholders are assessing several potential monetization opportunities. The National Association of Broadcasters has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to sunset ATSC 1.0 by 2030, and broadcasters are examining how the new standard might generate revenue beyond traditional advertising.

“We had the HD transition. We had the analog to digital. It’s very similar to that,” said John Hane, president and CEO of BitPath, comparing the current transition to previous broadcast evolutions. “Yes, it is a lot harder initially for the consumer to tell the difference. But it’s very obvious when they see sports in HDR versus not. On NBC primetime, are they gonna know the difference? Probably not. But there are instances where it’s really easy to tell.”

Addressable advertising potential

Targeted advertising represents one potential opportunity enabled by NextGen TV’s IP-based architecture.

“NextGen TV enables TV stations to explore new business models powered by linear, addressable advertising and interactive content delivery,” said Mary Crebassa, VP of Major Accounts at LTN. “A viewer seeing an addressable ad can also be served an interactive overlay showing sales or offers specific to the nearest store.”

This personalization capability could potentially increase advertising values.

“We need to get digital-style CPMs, where we can charge higher CPMs because we’re delivering a better audience for our advertisers that is more attuned to the particular program and the particular viewers that are watching it,” said Rob Folliard of Gray Media.

“Broadcasters also need to update their content delivery systems to ensure they can manage advanced features, such as dynamic ad insertion,” said Crebassa on broadcasters updating their infrastructure for DAI.

Anne Schelle, who leads the broadcast industry consortium Pearl TV, noted that the system is designed to work with existing digital advertising standards.

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“That’s the beauty of this platform being IP based,” said Schelle. “The platform can enable it… it’s more server-side based.” 

Datacasting creates new markets

In early 2025, four broadcasting groups — E.W. Scripps Company, Gray Media, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair — formed EdgeBeam Wireless, a joint venture designed to provide data services using ATSC 3.0 technology.

According to EdgeBeam’s internal estimates, the potential market for automotive connectivity services could reach $3.7 billion annually, content delivery network services could represent $3.65 billion per year, and enhanced GPS services could generate up to $220 million annually. These figures represent total addressable markets rather than projected revenue for EdgeBeam expressly.

“The transmission of high-speed data via our broadcast infrastructure represents a new way forward for the broadcast industry,” said Perry Sook, chairman and CEO of Nexstar.

Chris Ripley, Sinclair’s president and CEO, called the venture “a groundbreaking development for the broadcast industry” that could “develop new revenue opportunities.”

Industry executives have identified several potential datacasting applications.

“Datacasting is another opportunity, potentially turning excess spectrum into a new revenue stream for services like CDN offloading, software updates for IoT devices, and in-vehicle entertainment,” said Steve Edwards of Rohde & Schwarz.

“The added benefit for TV stations is that this is already an established market with ample opportunity to make the most of growing demand — especially as the volume of connected devices is rising exponentially,” said Crebassa. 

BitPath has been exploring various datacasting applications, with an interest in automotive connectivity and positioning services.

Hane points to the Broadcast Positioning System as a potential selling point to both the FCC and device manufacturers, particularly as a GPS backup solution. But beyond the BPS, Hanes also notes the 3.0 standard supports precision location services.

“We can provide a quality location service equal to or better than the location service used by surveyors in construction, by precision agriculture, by utility monitoring, we can provide the very, very highest quality precision location information to everybody all the time for a trivial cost,” said Hanes. “For most services, the technology really just needs to be baked in, but our service is live today, so we’re not waiting.”

Expanded channel capacity

The improved efficiency of ATSC 3.0 creates opportunities to generate more revenue from existing spectrum holdings.

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“By leveraging ATSC 3.0, TV stations can gain more channel capacity, enabling them to create, bring to market, and monetize twice as many channels across SD and HD,” said Crebassa. 

This capacity allows broadcasters to launch additional programming without obtaining additional spectrum, potentially doubling revenue from existing broadcast assets.

Subscription and on-demand services

NextGen TV might enable broadcasters to create subscription and on-demand offerings similar to streaming platforms.

“They’re having to divide a shrinking market among an unnaturally large number of competitors,” said Hanes on broadcasters competing with streamers. 

“Some broadcasters are exploring subscription-based models in order for their on-demand content. A lot of broadcasters know that they have certain content that’s popular and they know people might pay a subscription in order to get on certain channels,” Crebassa said.

The standard’s interactivity features, including program restart functionality, could position broadcasters to compete more directly with streaming services.

For example, ahead of the Summer Olympics in Paris, NBC rolled out NextGen features, including “start over.”

“We want to enable start over in all of our newscasts. If someone tunes into our evening news at 6:08, we want them to be able to hit the start over button and start from the very beginning,” said Folliard, on the feature coming to local content.

Emergency alerting services as a revenue stream

Enhanced emergency alerting capabilities represent another potential service, mainly through government partnerships and sponsorships. 

Ed Czarnecki of Digital Alert Systems described advanced emergency information as “real-time transmission of urgent information, total situational awareness, but also information around that, which may include advertising, may include other forms of underwriting, if you’re in the public broadcast community, that can make this self-sustaining.”

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“This would enable public broadcasters to explore new funding sources through educational programming, telehealth, and emergency alerting,” said Edwards, on how public broadcasters in particular could benefit from enhanced alerting capabilities. 

The technology’s ability to deliver customized alerts at local levels could potentially translate to government funding or support, or new sponsorship opportunities around weather or traffic alerts. 

As the industry continues the NextGen TV rollout, these potential revenue opportunities will be tested in the market to determine their viability beyond traditional advertising-supported linear television.