\n<\/p>\n
If you happen to live in Las Vegas and have a TV with an ATSC 3.0 tuner, then, for the next few days, there will be a new channel on your TV. At first, the Roxi channel just appears to play music videos, but when you hit the pause button on your remote, the TV pauses \u2014 despite being a broadcast channel. There\u2019s no DVR involved or app you need to download. And with the press of your remote, you can skip ahead to the next music video or even choose from other playlists, all within the broadcast channel. It\u2019s something that\u2019s been central to the promise of ATSC 3.0, and Roxi thinks it\u2019s finally delivering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Roxi CEO Rob Lewis knows a bit about music streaming. In the 2000s, he was the CEO of Omnifone, one of the first music streaming companies \u2014 back when Nokia was still the phone du jour. He founded Roxi in 2014 to find a way to make music streaming easier, and he quickly collected a roster of famous investors, including Sheryl Crow, Robbie Williams, and Stephen Fry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Now, he\u2019s focused on improving ATSC 3.0 because, in practice, it kind of sucks. If your market has channels that support it, and if you have an ATSC 3.0 tuner, your TV will get better-quality video and audio. It\u2019s a noticeable improvement but not exactly the kind of thing that would make either broadcasters or audiences race out to buy a new TV. Its lackluster rollout and support have hurt the standard \u2014 with LG last year announcing it would not be including ATSC 3.0 tuners in its 2024 TVs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But ATSC 3.0 has real potential as an alternative to paid streaming apps and internet-dependent FAST TV channels<\/a> \u2014 particularly when it comes to interactive TV. Lewis thinks Roxi has finally figured that part of ATSC 3.0 out. Roxi accomplishes the feat using technology Lewis calls \u201cFastStream,\u201d which temporarily downloads an app to the TV\u2019s short-term memory. The app is on the TV only as long as you\u2019re on the channel, and when you flip to another channel, it goes away. (Lewis calls it a \u201ctransitory app.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n While limited to music for now, the tech could eventually be used to actually buy stuff directly from your TV, get weather on demand, skip around the news to get the local segments you actually want to watch, or possibly even give you on-demand TV and films \u2014 all things that ATSC 3.0 has been promising for years and failing to deliver<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s probably why Sinclair partnered with Roxi. Sinclair currently owns about 40 percent of the broadcast TV market in the United States, and given the state of broadcast TV, it\u2019s on borrowed time<\/a>. Sinclair and other broadcasters need to compete with streaming and social media \u2014 which are both far more nimble and interactive. Roxi\u2019s FastStream technology could help with that. At one point in our conversation, Lewis compared the Roxi channel to TikTok in that it\u2019s all preprogrammed and you can skip ahead if you don\u2019t like what it shows you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The channel will be available in Las Vegas through Friday, as it\u2019s currently being used to demonstrate the technology at CES. Then, it\u2019s expected to appear in all US markets that currently have ATSC 3.0 channels by the end of Q1 2024 \u2014 both those dominated by Sinclair and those not.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n