Industry Insights: Where NextGen TV revenue begins to take shape

With infrastructure in place and policy questions unresolved, the conversation around ATSC 3.0 is increasingly shifting toward outcomes.

In the final installment of this Industry Insights roundtable, broadcast leaders examine where NextGen TV is beginning to show real commercial promise and what still stands in the way of scale.

The discussion explores early revenue signals from datacasting, targeted advertising and hybrid services, alongside the organizational readiness required to support them. Panelists also look ahead to what would mark a true inflection point, when ATSC 3.0 stops being treated as a special initiative and becomes part of everyday broadcast planning.

Together, these perspectives frame NextGen TV not as a single breakthrough product, but as an evolving platform whose long-term value depends on integration, execution and ecosystem coordination.

Key takeaways from this Industry Insights roundtable

• Datacasting leads monetization: Business-to-business data delivery is emerging as the most viable near-term revenue path for ATSC 3.0.
• Advertising shows promise: Targeted and addressable advertising capabilities offer measurable improvements over legacy broadcast models.
• Operational readiness lags: Skills, workflows and organizational alignment trail technology deployment for expanded NextGen services.
• Integration defines maturity: ATSC 3.0 becomes foundational when it is planned, budgeted and staffed as routine infrastructure.
• Hybrid delivery remains unfinished: True interchangeability between over-the-air and internet delivery is still largely unrealized.

Which revenue opportunities tied to ATSC 3.0 are showing early signs of viability?

Alan Young, VP of strategic business development, Zixi: While it’s still early, services like datacasting are showing they have promise, largely because they can be piloted incrementally and aligned with existing customer relationships. Broadcasters are being realistic: Most are not expecting immediate transformational revenue, but rather proof points that justify continued investment. The more successful approaches tend to start with operational feasibility and partner alignment before chasing scale. Revenue opportunities that fit naturally into existing workflows and sales motions are gaining traction faster than those that require wholesale reinvention.

Fabio Murra, SVP, product and marketing, V-Nova: The clearest early “checks you can cash” are B2B uses of 3.0 as a one‑to‑many IP data pipe. You can see that thinking directly in EdgeBeam Wireless (a broadcaster JV explicitly aimed at wireless data services) and in Sinclair’s Broadspan datacasting platform. On the consumer side, interactivity is getting more concrete: Standards like A/344 define a web-based interactive environment in the receiver, and platforms like Run3TV are trying to make that consistent across brands and markets. TV 3.0 in Brazil adds a critical proof point: with the addition of MIMO/LDM and LCEVC, broadcasters can deliver premium UHD sports and live event audiences while simultaneously allocating spectrum for datacasting.

Gil Rudge, SVP, solutions and Americas sales, video, Harmonic: Targeted advertising shows the most promise, with ATSC 3.0 enabling more addressable, measurable ad experiences than legacy broadcast. Beyond ads, premium viewing upgrades like Ultra HD and advanced, immersive audio are compelling differentiators that will enable broadcasters to support new business models. As the NextGen TV rollout matures, interactive applications will open the door to deeper viewer engagement and future monetization opportunities.

Mark Simpson, president and CEO,  Triveni Digital: Several ATSC 3.0–enabled revenue opportunities show promise including datacasting services and leasing excess broadcast spectrum for data delivery applications. Broadcasters are also exploring new service models tied to advanced emergency alerting and public safety communications. In addition, Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) services highlight how ATSC 3.0 can support entirely new value-added offerings, enhancing the reliability of national infrastructure and positioning broadcasters as an integral part of critical communications.

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How are datacasting, advanced advertising or other services being positioned internally to stakeholders?

Dan Pisarski, CTO, LiveU: LiveU has previously participated in the early stages of several datacasting projects, which were firmly positioned as potential new revenue streams. However, to take advantage of this opportunity it’s likely stations will need to join an alternative industry effort — capitalizing on this opportunity does not appear to be an internal skillset that stations have.

Gil Rudge, SVP, solutions and Americas sales, video, Harmonic: Station groups are positioning datacasting, advanced advertising and interactive services as critical capabilities that can drive new revenue and strengthen viewer engagement. These services have a long-term upside and are already supported by ATSC 3.0 solutions being deployed today, including Harmonic’s XOS Advanced Media Processor, which supports advanced dynamic ad insertion capabilities.

How prepared are station teams, not just technology stacks, to support expanded NextGen services?

Lynn Rowe, member, RIST Forum, founder and CEO, One World Technologies: Station teams lack clarity because the overall integration framework for NextGen services has not been defined. This uncertainty makes it difficult to train staff or plan for future operational models. Broadcasters need clearer guidance and ecosystem-wide coordination to build readiness.

Fabio Murra, SVP, product and marketing, V-Nova: ATSC 3.0 introduces a multi-layered architecture that requires expertise spanning IP networking, software defined broadcasting, real-time signaling coordination, and dynamic spectrum management — skill sets rarely found in traditional broadcast engineering departments. As such, broadcast operations teams are ramping up rapidly to deliver combinations of OTA and streaming services, including hybrid broadcast-broadband and other scenarios such as using an ATSC EPG to drive a viewer to a streaming-only channel, transparently, a technique known as Broadcast-Enabled Streaming TV (BEST).

Looking ahead, what would signal that ATSC 3.0 has moved from experiment to foundation?

Alan Young, VP of strategic business development, Zixi: The real signal will be when ATSC 3.0 planning becomes routine rather than exceptional. When stations design workflows assuming NextGen capabilities, budget for them as part of normal infrastructure cycles, and staff teams to support them operationally, the transition will be complete. Equally important, success will look less like a single breakthrough application and more like steady, reliable integration into everyday broadcast operations. At that point, ATSC 3.0 stops being a project and starts being part of the foundation.

Edward Czarnecki, vice president, government and international, Digital Alert Systems: I’d push back on the premise a bit ATSC 3.0 is not an “experiment” anymore. The foundation is already there. The question is when the ecosystem treats it like the default. What would signal that shift? A few concrete things, like some form of policy certainty from the FCC, especially around the 1.0 simulcast path and the basic rules of the road so stations and manufacturers aren’t planning around “maybe.” And back to the on the public-interest side: routine use of advanced public warning and emergency information, geo-targeted alerts, richer instructions, multimedia, delivered reliably and broadly enough that it’s just part of how communities get critical info.

Lynn Rowe, member, RIST Forum, founder and CEO, One World Technologies: A major signal would be a shift toward purpose-built infrastructure designed specifically for modern video and data distribution. This would demonstrate commitment to ATSC 3.0’s native strengths rather than repurposing telco frameworks. It would also reflect industry confidence in NextGen TV as a longterm backbone technology.

Mary Crebassa, VP, major accounts, LTN: ATSC 3.0 becomes foundational when it’s no longer the story; it’s the infrastructure the story is built on. We say it’s jntegrated into the network-of-networks, meaning ATSC 3.0 is treated as a native node alongside broadband, wireless, and cloud delivery, used strategically for scale, resilience, and efficiency, not positioned as a standalone alternative.

Gil Rudge, SVP, solutions and Americas sales, video, Harmonic: ATSC 3.0 will truly shift from experiment to foundation when ATSC 1.0 begins to shut down and receiver adoption accelerates to the point of broad market saturation. Another key signal will be consistent viewer feedback about interoperability across devices, showing the ecosystem is stable and ready for mainstream use. At that stage, NextGen TV services like immersive audio, higher video quality including Ultra HD and HDR broadcasts, interactivity and targeted advertising will become standard expectations for over-the-air viewing.

What’s missing from the conversation?

Dan Pisarski, CTO, LiveU: There is an ecosystem of tooling, that is not necessarily a core part of the fundamental broadcast chain, which will need upgrading to ATSC 3.0. Compliance and monitoring are just one such example; in-building retransmission for MDUs, offices and hospitals, is another, and there are more.

Adi Rozenburg, director, RIST Forum, CEO/CTO and co-founder, Alvalinks: The missing piece is genuine hybrid delivery that can seamlessly shift live streams between the Internet and ATSC 3.0, especially during peak-demand events like the Super Bowl. ATSC 3.0 promised interchangeable over the air (OTA) and internet delivery, but in practice most implementations still use OTA for live content and IP only for metadata. The Video Services Forum RIST (Reliable Internet Stream Transport) Activity Group is addressing this gap by enabling true packet-level movement between the two paths, opening new business models such as delivering HD via OTA while offering HDR enhancements over IP, or using the internet to recover lost OTA packets and improve reach during harsh weather.

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