In the evolving media landscape, full-time channel distribution over IP requires satellite-beating capabilities. When Gray Television and Ryman Hospitality Properties launched Circle, an American country music lifestyle network that multicasts from the Grand Ole Opry, they seized the opportunity to deploy a novel transport, monitoring, and control workflow. David Burke and Rick Young discuss the new requirements to consider for a network launch, meeting your channel objectives in the face of any challenge, and how broadcasters and service providers can collaborate to win the future of video.

SPEAKERS:

Wes Simpson, Moderator and Contributing Editor

Wes Simpson has always been interested in delivering media signals over networks. After starting his career in mobile telephony and then moving into fiber optics, he has focused on high performance video transport for the past 25 years. Wes has developed and delivered well-received training seminars covering IP video and media networking technology for a wide range of private clients and organizations such as the VSF, the IEEE BTS, and SMPTE. He is a contributing editor for TV Technology and frequently speaks at events including VidTrans, SMPTE, NAB, and IBC. He has written two books which have both been released as second editions: “IPTV and Internet Video” and Video Over IP.”

Rick Young, SVP & Head of Global Products, LTN Global

A media technology and services executive, Rick Young directs global product strategy for the LTN Ecosystem. Rick has held senior leadership roles at news organizations, content owners, and technology providers ranging from startups to global brands. Throughout his career, Rick has focused on the intersection of media and technology, from content creation and delivery to consumer experience perspectives.

David Burke, SVP, CTO, Gray TV

Mr. David Burke was appointed SVP, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), for Gray TV on January 1, 2019. Prior to that position, David served as the VP, CTO, for Raycom Media since January 2015. Mr. Burke held various IT and technology related positions since his employment began with Raycom Media in September 1997. Prior to Raycom Media, Mr. Burke served as an officer in the United States Air Force and then held various technology related positions in private industry. Mr. Burke has been involved in several Industry and professional associations over his career. Mr. Burke graduated from The Citadel in 1983 with a degree in Mathematics and earned an M.B.A. from the University of West Florida in 1986.

To register and view this webcast, click here. 

Upstart service Black News Channel recently pushed back its launch date to January from November in an effort to finalize additional carriage deals for the network, which currently has agreements with Comcast, Charter Communications and Dish Network for select markets representing around 33 million linear-TV homes, with additional contracts for mobile devices and smart TVs. Primetime anchors named so far include former CNNer Fred Hickman, Laverne McGee and Anthony Amey.

J.C. Watts, co-founder and chairman of the independently-owned Black News Channel, spoke with Multichannel News about the decision to move the network’s launch date into 2020. Watts, who served as a Republican House member from 1995 to 2003 and was a star college quarterback, also talked about the network’s mandate to launch in a crowded, competitive television environment. Here’s an edited transcript of their conversation.

MCN: Why delay the launch of Black News Channel until January?

J.C. Watts: We have a chance to make history with the number of households/devices that will carry our product, so we wanted to make sure we have everything together for our launch. In the next two to three weeks we’re going to announce some partnerships that will take us beyond where we are now. It makes sense business-wise and in terms of distribution to wait. We only get one chance to make a first impression, so we’re now going to launch on Jan. 6.

MCN: Are there potentially new distribution partners on the linear side, or are they some of the newer streaming services?

JCW: It’s both. When we started this years ago, digital wasn’t as big as it is today. The first question I received from our two biggest sponsors was, “what’s your digital strategy?” So we had not fully thought through that even though it was on our radar screen. Today, 98% of African-American millennials have cellphones, and 68% say that they get their news information from that cellphone. It has turbocharged itself over the last two or three years, so we’ll soon announce some partnerships that will allow us to be relevant where our audience gets its information from.

MCN: Do you have any sense of how many households the network will launch with in January?

JCW: I think, [in terms of] households, we’ll be in the 33 million range, but we’ll significantly increase our reach with some mobile deals. I feel comfortable in saying we’ll be able to announce those partnerships in the next three to four weeks.

MCN: How would you define the Black News Channel brand?

JCW: We are a brand that will be culturally specific to the African-American community. When you look at the landscape on linear television and even on the digital platforms, there’s very little news, information, educational and inspirational content that is culturally specific to us. The news channels today disproportionately talk about crime, athletics and entertainment more than news pertaining to us culturally. So that is our brand, and we say while those other things exist, there's more to the black community than what’s on the linear and digital platforms.

MCN: How important is the concept of Black News Channel given some of the developments we’ve seen recently on the political front, as well as in the culture?

JCW: I can say without exaggeration that the intensity and the relevance is more intense today than it’s been in the last 10 years. The culture of politics certainly has something to do with that. I testified before the Senate Commerce Committee a couple of weeks ago, and I said to them in all of the 200-plus channels that you can get on your TV dial, there’s not one place in that lineup that you can go to get content that educates and informs, and that is culturally specific to the African-American community.

We’re talking about current affairs, wellness, information on the HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) community — there's nowhere you can go for education and information. The community has recognized that for many years, and our research says that African-Americans will watch content that is culturally specific to us, and that’s who we are.

MCN: Why do you feel this is the best time to launch Black News Channel?

JCW: Today, compared to two years ago or 10 years ago, the intensity level for the service has actually grown. There’s nothing that would encourage us to believe by any stretch of the imagination that the service is not desired by the community. We already have carriage today with Charter, Comcast and Dish, and we’ll have our digital deals in place that give us an opportunity with the carriage and the capital to sustain where we need to be going forward.

Even as pay TV operators mull removing channels from the traditional cable bundle, Crown Media Networks hopes Sunday’s (Oct. 1) launch of new linear channel Hallmark Drama shows there’s still life in the old bundle.

Hallmark Drama, like its sister networks Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, will offer a mix of acquired content and Hallmark-themed originals aimed at fans of the brand, according to Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott.

Related: Why Hallmark Is Betting It Can Create a New Cable Network

Abbott said Hallmark Drama will not feature any programming currently airing on Hallmark or Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, drawing instead on Crown Media’s library of original movies and series, including decades of “Hallmark Hall of Fame” films.

Distribution deals with several undisclosed pay TV providers will put Hallmark Drama in 5 million households at launch, the company said. Sister network Hallmark Movies & Mysteries deals do not include a license fee, according to industry sources, though Abbott and Crown officials would not discuss carriage terms, citing confidentiality.

“We still have quite a few deals that we have to complete and we will have significant distribution by first quarter 2018,” Abbott said.

Hallmark Drama follows another recent, sizable linear channel launch: NBCUniversal’s July debut of the Olympic Channel. Overall, though, channel launches run against the trend of distributors dropping networks where possible in an effort to offer cheaper, slimmed-down cable packages to consumers.

Abbott said there’s still appeal in the traditional cable bundle and is pitching Hallmark Drama as adding value to distributor packages.

“It’s our view that the ecosystem is still very strong and the big package of multiple cable networks is still a value and provides a great television option,” he said. “The skinny bundle is great if you’re maybe a single person or not that big a fan of TV, but if you’re in a household with more than one person and those people have a variety of interests, the skinny bundle doesn’t do it.”

Hallmark Channel has enjoyed strong ratings momentum, finishing among the top 15 cable networks in primetime during the third quarter of 2017, averaging 884,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. That was more than the 813,000 viewers posted during the second quarter, Nielsen said.

Hallmark will also step into the OTT arena Oct. 10 with the debut of the Hallmark Movies Now subscription streaming service. The offering, which will cost $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year, will also feature unduplicated content.

“For the passionate Hallmark fan who is engaged toward our content in a big way, we’re offering the service as an add-on that really punches up their engagement with Hallmark and [lets them] experience content they won’t see on the other three Hallmark services,” he said.