Digital multicast television network

Last updated

A digital multicast television network, also known as a diginet or multichannel, is a type of national television service designed to be broadcast terrestrially as a supplementary service to other stations on their digital subchannels. Made possible by the conversion from analog to digital television broadcasting, which left room for additional services to be broadcast from an individual transmitter, regional and national broadcasters alike have introduced such channels since the 2000s. By March 2022, 54 such services existed in the United States. [1]

Contents

Typically run on a lesser budget, national multicast services often rely on archive and imported content and are tailored to allow advertisers to reach specific demographics. Most of their revenue is derived from national advertising.

Digital multicast services by country

Australia

The first multichannel broadcast in Australia was ABC Kids, which broadcast from 2001 to 2003; in the succeeding years, the country's commercial broadcasters also launched secondary services to compete against DVDs and online piracy. [2] However, their ability to do so was hampered at first by a ban on adding channels, with a focus on such services as datacasting and high-definition. It was not until 2009 that commercial broadcasters were allowed to add multichannels; in that year, the three major networks all did so, bringing the number of channels they offered from three to eleven. [3]

The original commercial multichannels were generalist in nature, which made it difficult for advertisers to target specific demographics and therefore made them less lucrative. The shift to specifically targeted services and their reliance on existing programming has allowed these channels to survive despite drawing comparatively low shares of the audience: in 2018, 7mate led the group with an audience share of 4.1 percent among metropolitan audiences. [2] However, after the Australian Communications and Media Authority permitted the commercial broadcasters to move required children's programming and national drama commitments to their multichannels, ratings and visibility fell precipitously; by 2013, the ABC had more viewers for its children's channels than the commercial broadcasters combined. [3] The commercial broadcasters also became more reliant on news, sport, and reality competitions on their main channels. [3]

Each of the five major broadcasters offers its own suite of multichannels: [4]

Mexico

In 2017, TV Azteca launched a+ (now A Más), initially conceived as a hybrid regional-national service to be carried on its existing Azteca 7 transmitters in most of Mexico. [5] [6] The new channel—as well as news channel adn40, aired on Azteca Uno transmitters, achieved sufficient national coverage to be classified a national network by the Federal Telecommunications Institute in December 2017, making it mandatory for satellite TV providers to add it to their lineups. [7]

United States

For most of the 2000s, digital multicasting in the United States remained less used. One of the earliest successful uses of subchannels was to broadcast automated weather information. The first such subchannel was the 69 News Weather Channel, launched in February 2001 by WFMZ-TV in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with the assistance of AccuWeather. [8] In 2004, NBC and its affiliates launched NBC Weather Plus, which was available in its peak from more than 80 stations nationally. [9] Another early subchannel user was The Tube Music Network, which broadcast music videos from 2005 to 2007 before closing for financial reasons. [10] [11]

2008 was a critical year in the shift toward programmed digital multicast services. NBC Weather Plus was shut down at the end of 2008 in a decision taken by the network's affiliates. [12] [9] Several new channels offering classic TV programming were launching or growing at the time. These included the Retro Television Network (RTN), started in 2005 by Equity Media Holdings as the first such service, [11] [13] and This TV, a movie service run as a joint venture between Weigel Broadcasting and film studio MGM. [9] Another planned subchannel of this type, the .2 Network, was announced and signed up affiliates but never launched amid the Great Recession. [14] These subchannels offered stations the ability to expand their advertising inventory and offer lower prices on the secondary services. [14] In addition to services signing up national affiliates, some station groups were beginning to experiment around this time. CBS explored, but never launched, a complementary secondary channel, dubbed "CBS 2". [15] In 2007, Ion Media, which owned a network of transmitters serving most major U.S. markets, launched kids channel Qubo and health and wellness service Ion Life. [16] Weigel launched MeTV, which had formerly only been a local service in Chicago and Milwaukee, on a national basis in December 2010; four years later, it was the most widely distributed multicast network. [17] It remains the most-watched; in 2021, it had an average prime time audience of 752,000, nearly double the next-highest diginet and greater than cable channels such as Bravo, Lifetime, and A&E. [1]

As digital multicast services began to proliferate and gain viewers in the 2010s, they also became more specialized in an attempt to stand out and reach potential viewers. However, those that were not owned by large station groups and thus could not count on a backbone of significant national coverage struggled to negotiate distribution, having to do so with individual stations in each of the United States's more than 200 television markets. [18] This market favored new services launched by the station groups. [19] The business was also maturing significantly due to the rise of cord cutting, enabling some services to make a profit off advertising. Nielsen's list of top 100 television channels in 2016 did not contain any diginets; in 2018, eight made the list. [13] This led to increased mergers and acquisitions activity. In 2017, the E. W. Scripps Company acquired Katz Broadcasting for $302 million. The purchase was notable for adding four diginets: the women-focused Escape (now Ion Mystery), the men-targeted Grit, Bounce TV to serve the Black market, and the comedy channel Laff. Scripps saw an opportunity to reduce the proportion of advertising on these services that was direct response and toward more expensive general-market advertising. [20] The deal was seen as a validation of the diginet business. [19] Scripps then acquired most of the Ion Media transmitter network and affiliated with the remainder in 2021, using the transmitters to broadcast a growing array of targeted, thematic diginets. [21] [22] Tegna, like Scripps an owner of full-service broadcast stations, acquired the Justice Network (now True Crime Network) and Quest for $91 million in 2019. [13]

Multicast services typically pay local stations to affiliate, with higher payments going to stations with lower major channel numbers; owning the host station, as Scripps does with the Ion transmitters, allows for the reduction of costs by eliminating such payments in some markets. [21] In some cases, switching stations can also lead to the service gaining carriage on cable in its broadcast area. For instance, in 2022, Sinclair Broadcast Group moved Comet, one of its three diginets, from WSBK-TV to WFXT in the Boston area, which also led to cable carriage for the Comet subchannel. [22] In the late 2010s and early 2020s, diginets such as NBC-owned Cozi TV began making national distribution deals with satellite, paid streaming, and ad-supported streaming providers that previously had not carried them, further increasing their reach. [23] Further, the use of more efficient generations of MPEG-2 encoders by TV stations allowed for the transmission of additional subchannels from the same transmitter; a representative for Harmonic, a seller of encoders, noted that stations were seeing a return on their investment within less than a year from the additional revenue stream opened up by adding another diginet. [24]

Public television stations in the United States were also comparatively early adopters of multicasting, and public TV content distributors joined the game in the mid-2000s, such as with the launch of Create by American Public Television in January 2006. [15] In 2016, PBS began providing a 24-hour PBS Kids service to member stations. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KFSN-TV</span> ABC TV station in Fresno, California

KFSN-TV is a television station in Fresno, California, United States, serving as the market's ABC network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, and maintains studios on G Street in downtown Fresno; its transmitter is located on Bear Mountain, near Meadow Lakes, California.

WNPX-TV is a television station licensed to Franklin, Tennessee, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Nashville area. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company alongside CBS affiliate WTVF. WNPX-TV's transmitter is located near Cross Plains, Tennessee.

In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual program stream, and multiplexing to combine them into a single signal. The practice is sometimes called "multicasting".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qubo</span> American childrens entertainment brand

Qubo was an American television network for children between the ages of 5 and 14. Owned by Ion Media, it consisted of a 24-hour free-to-air television network often mentioned as the "Qubo channel", associated website with games and programs available through video on demand, and a weekly programming block on Ion Television, along with Ion Life, later known as Ion Plus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KMCC</span> Independent TV station in Laughlin, Nevada

KMCC, branded Vegas 34, is an independent television station licensed to Laughlin, Nevada, United States, serving the Las Vegas area. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside ABC affiliate KTNV-TV. The two stations share studios on South Valley View Boulevard in the nearby unincorporated community of Paradise. KMCC uses a distributed transmission system, with the main transmitter located near Dolan Springs, Arizona, and a secondary transmitter at the KTNV studios.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WDLI-TV</span> Bounce TV station in Canton, Ohio

WDLI-TV is a television station licensed to Canton, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland–Akron area as an affiliate of the digital multicast network Bounce TV. It is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings alongside Ion Television affiliate WVPX-TV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiplex (television)</span> Grouping of program services that are sub-grouped as interleaved data packets

A multiplex or mux, also known as a bouquet, is a grouping of program services as interleaved data packets for broadcast over a network or modulated multiplexed medium, particularly terrestrial broadcasting. The program services are broadcast as part of one transmission and split out at the receiving end.

ABC Owned Television Stations is a division of Disney Entertainment operated by Disney Networks Group that oversees the owned-and-operated stations of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), a division of The Walt Disney Company. The division also operates the Localish network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Localish</span> American lifestyle TV network

Localish is a digital multicast television network owned by ABC Owned Television Stations, a division of Disney.

Bounce TV is an American digital multicast television network owned by Scripps Networks, a subsidiary of E. W. Scripps Company. Promoted as "the first 24/7 digital multicast broadcast network created to target African Americans", the channel features a mix of original and acquired programming geared toward African Americans between 25 and 54 years of age. The network is network affiliate with terrestrial television and television station in many media markets through digital subchannel. It is also available on the digital cable tiers of select cable providers at the discretion of local affiliates, as well as on Dish Network, DirecTV and Frndly TV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion Plus</span> American broadcast television network

Ion Plus is an American free linear television network owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company that formerly operated as a broadcast television network until February 28, 2021. The network originally launched in 2007 as Ion Life, maintaining a format featuring lifestyle programming focused on health and wellness, cooking, home decor, and travel. With expanded cable carriage, in 2019, Ion Media converted the network into a general entertainment format that matched that of parent network Ion Television, featuring day-long marathons of various drama series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Get (TV network)</span> American digital multicast television network

Get is an American digital multicast television network owned by the network television division of Sony Pictures Television. Originally known as GetTV from 2014 until its rebranding in 2023, the network was initially formatted as a movie-oriented service, and over time transitioned into a general entertainment network featuring primarily classic television shows from the 1960s through the 2000s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grit (TV network)</span> American free-to-air television network

Grit is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network features classic westerns, both TV series and films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ion Mystery</span> American digital multicast TV network

Ion Mystery is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. It focuses primarily on mystery, true crime, and police/legal procedural programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catchy Comedy</span> American digital multicast TV network

Catchy Comedy, formerly known as Decades, is an American digital broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. The network, which is mainly carried on the digital subchannels of television stations, primarily airs classic television sitcoms from the 1950s through the early 1990s. Established in 2015, the network was previously called Decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laff (TV network)</span> American digital multicast television network

Laff is an American digital multicast television network headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and is owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network specializes in comedy programming, featuring mainly sitcoms from the 1990s through the 2020s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scripps Networks</span> American digital multicasting network media company

Scripps Networks, LLC, formerly known as Katz Broadcasting, is an American specialized digital multicasting network media company and a division of the E. W. Scripps Company. The company owns eight broadcast television networks, nine FAST streaming networks and a streaming service that each carry programming with specified formats targeted at individual demographics.

Defy TV is an American digital multicast television network owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, airing primarily reality shows, having launched on July 1, 2021, with broadcast coverage of 92% of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TrueReal</span> American digital multicast TV network

TrueReal was an American digital multicast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, targeting women aged 25–54.

References

  1. 1 2 Bridge, Gavin (April 3, 2022). "The Rise of the Diginets". Variety. Archived from the original on October 15, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  2. 1 2 Lallo, Michael (December 7, 2018). "Their audiences are tiny, so why do TV multichannels even exist?". The Sydney Morning Herald . Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 Potter, Anna; Lotz, Amanda D. (February 2022). "The first stage of Australia's digital transition and its implications for Australian television drama". Media International Australia. 182 (1): 95–110. doi: 10.1177/1329878X211030370 . ISSN   1329-878X. S2CID   237805867.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Villamil, Jenaro (March 13, 2017). "TV Azteca relanza dos canales de televisión: Adn40 y A+" [TV Azteca relaunches two TV channels: ADN40 and A+]. Proceso (in Spanish). Archived from the original on March 20, 2018. Retrieved March 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ Bello, Alberto; Corona, Liliana (March 14, 2017). "TV Azteca fortalece su programación y usará el canal 7.2 para contenidos locales" [TV Azteca strengthens programming and will use channel 7.2 for local content]. Expansión (in Spanish). Archived from the original on October 24, 2022. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
  7. ↑ "ACUERDO mediante el cual el Pleno del Instituto Federal de Telecomunicaciones actualiza las señales radiodifundidas con cobertura de 50% o más del territorio nacional en términos de los Lineamientos Generales en relación con lo dispuesto por la fracción I del artículo Octavo Transitorio del Decreto por el que se reforman y adicionan diversas disposiciones de los artículos 6o., 7o., 27, 28, 73, 78, 94 y 105 de la Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, en materia de telecomunicaciones". Diario Oficial de la Federación . December 20, 2017. Archived from the original on December 4, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  8. ↑ Frassinelli, Mike (February 6, 2001). "Valley gets its own TV weather channel". The Morning Call . Archived from the original on November 3, 2013.
  9. 1 2 3 Malone, Michael (October 27, 2008). "Weigel, MGM Hope 'This' Thing's a Hit". Archived from the original on December 26, 2008. Retrieved October 26, 2008.
  10. ↑ "Raycom Launches The Tube Music Network". Billboard. Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group. April 25, 2005. Archived from the original on March 29, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2021.{{cite magazine}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)
  11. 1 2 Taub, Eric (June 9, 2008). "More Channels Are Coming. Will Anyone Be Watching?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on September 8, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2017.
  12. ↑ Greppi, Michelle (October 7, 2008). "NBC Shutting Down Weather Plus". TelevisionWeek . Archived from the original on November 19, 2008. Retrieved October 7, 2008.
  13. 1 2 3 Collins, Mary (November 15, 2019). "Diginets Maturing Into Attractive M&A Targets". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on June 23, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  14. 1 2 Romano, Allison (January 19, 2009). "Cutting Bait On Subchannels". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on March 9, 2018. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  15. 1 2 Umstead, R. Thomas; Moss, Linda (December 10, 2005). "Much Ado About Multicasting". Multichannel News . Archived from the original on December 6, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  16. ↑ Eggerton, John (February 21, 2007). "Digital Multicast Channel Ion Life Launches". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on July 7, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  17. ↑ Guider, Elizabeth (June 18, 2014). "Classic TV Diginets Make The Old New Again". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on July 3, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  18. ↑ Marszalek, Diana (January 9, 2017). "Multicast Nets Extend Reach Into New Niches". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  19. 1 2 Messmer, Jack (July 24, 2019). "The Diginet World Is Having A Moment". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on June 21, 2021. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  20. ↑ Lafayette, Jon (November 6, 2017). "Diginets Bloom Into Mega-Businesses". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on September 27, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  21. 1 2 Lafayette, Jon (September 25, 2020). "No Retrans, No Problem for Scripps' Ion Deal". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on November 30, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  22. 1 2 Lafayette, Jon (June 15, 2022). "Sinclair Over-The-Air Networks Add 14 Million Households Through Distribution Upgrades". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  23. ↑ Lafayette, Jon (September 22, 2022). "DirecTV Adds NBCU Diginet Cozi TV to Satellite Lineup". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  24. ↑ Dickson, Glen (July 25, 2019). "Multicasting Special Report: Improved Encoders Equal More Diginets". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on June 29, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
  25. ↑ Eggerton, John (February 23, 2016). "PBS Launches Multicast Kids Channels, Streams". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on May 17, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.