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WRAL Featured in Industry Magazine Multicasting Piece |
In an article entitled “Suddenly It’s Hip To Spectrum-Split, The second coming of multicasting,” Broadcasting & Cable writers John Eggerton and Ken Kerschbaumer re-visit the medium of digital multicasting. The technology met with a controversial reception when first surfacing in 1997, but the fireworks have subsided to the embracing of multicasting.
WRAL-TV multicasts a 24-hour newschannel (right) & a 24-hour weather channel. |
“With compression technology offering the promise of ‘HDTV and’ rather than ‘HDTV or,’ broadcasters are beginning to see ways to do more than HDTV over their digital channels,” wrote Eggerton & Kerschbaumer. “…Today, more than 190 digital TV stations are multicasting, according to Decisionmark, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based firm that closely tracks DTV.”
The two launched their article with the example of CBC’s President & CEO. “HD pioneer Jim Goodmon, owner of WRAL-TV (CBS) and WRAZ (Fox) Raleigh, N.C., is a convert to multicasting. ‘I believe that HD is the primary driver of digital, though SD [standard-definition TV] is great, too. We’re a much better TV station because we can televise a local event or trial on the news channel.”
Between WRAL-TV and dedicates one of its digital channels to 24-hour local news. Local press conferences and even the Mike Peterson murder trial and the trial of former-Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps were aired live on the channel. WRAL also multi-casts many of the NCAA Basketball Championship games in March simultaneously using its digital spectrum. FOX50 (WRAZ-TV) broadcasts Hurricanes and Durham Bulls games and also has a digital channel dedicated to 24-hour local weather.
Currently, multi-casters rely on voluntary carriage by cable, such as Time Warner Cable via which WRAL & FOX50 multicast. Few television sets have the ability to receive multicasting over the air at this time.
