Smart move! There are only very rare occasions when everyone wants to be
watching exactly the same program at exactly the same time, and for those rare
occasions, streaming can handle that anyway! Doesn't matter if one-way
broadcast is a "more efficient way."
Good to see the OTT options increasing. Good to see a station group thinking
ahead like this.
Bert
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https://www.tvtechnology.com/atsc3/sinclair-launches-ad-supported-streaming-service-stirr
Sinclair Launches Ad-Supported Streaming Service STIRR
Launch of mobile-first OTT service comes as broadcaster is also working to
program smart phones via ATSC 3.0
Daniel Frankel Jan 16, 2019
While it hopes to one day reach the nation's mobile consumer with ATSC
3.0-based "one-to-many" broadcast technology, Sinclair Broadcast Group wants to
program smart phones in the here and now.
The broadcaster has launched OTT platform STIRR, which will bundle a collection
of about 20 news, sports and entertainment channels with its own aggregated
programming channels.
The service will be available on iOS and Android mobile devices, as well as
popular living-room OTT platforms Roku, Apple TV and Amazon FireTV. Users can
also access it via personal computers at www.stirr.com.
"We are entering a new era of broadcast television and our number one priority
at Sinclair is to help advance the industry and increase access to broadcast
content in the midst of a digital age," said Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley,
in a statement. "With the launch of STIRR, we intend to offer audiences an
easy, convenient and free way to watch live local and national channels, as
well access a deep selection of on-demand programming."
Channels included in the STIRR bundle will include BUZZR, Charge, Cheddar,
Comet, CONtv, Dove Channel, DUST, FailArmy, Futurism, Gravitas, Mobicrush,
MovieMix, NASA TV, Outdoor America, The Pet Collective, SOAR, Stadium, TBD, The
Tennis Channel and World Poker.
Using content from its nearly 200 stations, Sinclair will also create for STIRR
several aggregated channels themed around news, sports and entertainment-STIRR
Movies, STIRR Sports, STIRR Live and STIRR City.
STIRR City delivers a curated 24/7 program lineup based on where a viewer
lives. The new channel lineup includes live local news, local and regional
sports, entertainment and city-focused lifestyle programming provided by the
local Sinclair TV station in that city.
"Despite the explosive growth of new national over-the-top (OTT) services,
local TV station's programming, especially local news, has remained some of the
most popular and desired content to audiences and advertisers alike," said Adam
Ware, STIRR's general manager. "By creating the STIRR City channel format,
local TV stations can now extend their programming strength to OTT. STIRR will
offer viewers both a new local channel and an extensive local on-demand library
relevant to the place they call home."
Last week at CES, Sinclair unveiled system-on-a-chip hardware that will allow
smart phones and other devices to receive ATSC 3.0 signals. The broadcaster
hopes to one day deliver a national mobile programming platform through ATSC
3.0 rather than streaming.
"When all of us want to watch the same program at the same time, you're
delivering on a multiplicative basis a file which may be many gigabytes in
size," Sinclair's top technology executive, Mark Aitken, said in an interview
with sister publication Multichannel News at CES last week. "In unicast, I have
to deliver, for example, a 1 gigabyte file to everybody. Multiply that by
thousands. With [ATSC 3.0] broadcast, I deliver just one 1 gigabyte file, and
everybody's got it. You have this growing warehouse of spectrum that's coming
into the hands of the carriers. But we seem to have the same problems all the
time. Just try to watch the Super Bowl on your cell phone. it's very simple.
Our job is to get in front of the largest population as possible. The
one-to-everyone approach is a distribution technique that's much needed in
today's telecommunications environment."
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