Broadcasters are moving to the next stage of their streaming and digital evolution in different ways but are united in that the future is in some way hybrid, interactive, and multiplatform. There are distinct differences both within and between regions, as well as individual broadcasters, reflecting distinctions in standards being adopted and in the balance between the distribution media for existing linear services, primarily satellite, cable, digital terrestrial or IPTV.

There is a particular schism between Europe, where the tilt is more towards broadband delivery with growing interest in the DVB-I standard, and the USA, where ATSC 3.0 has been gaining traction with its emphasis on combining OTA (Over The Air) and internet distribution, rather than migrating linear services towards the latter.

With DVB-I, linear services will be retained but folded into streaming, with actual broadcast distribution confined to saving network bandwidth for transmission of popular content. That is achieved by 5G Broadcast/Multicast with its ability to convert from unicast distribution over mobile networks when the number of users receiving it passes a set threshold in a given area.

This distinction leads to some other technical niceties and also to significant differences in strategy for streaming at the national level, as well as for individual broadcasters. There are concerns on the streaming side over costs, as well as quality of experience and adherence to full broadcast standards when linear channels are transmitted over the internet.

For that reason, we note that Germany’s RTL is moving all its streaming services to the Bedrock platform developed by its French subsidiary, aiming to cut costs and eliminate duplicated effort.

The European DVB-I standard emerged as a kind of successor to HbbTV for migrating linear broadcast towards streaming, while maintaining at least the same resiliency and quality. Germany and Italy are the two countries that seem most enthusiastic about DVB-I, and most advanced with trials and commitments. The two countries differ in that German linear services are dominated by cable, satellite and IPTV, while in Italy digital terrestrial is still strong with very little cable TV.

Not surprisingly then concern over further loss of spectrum for DTT services has been particularly acute in Italy. With the real prospect of spectrum at 600 MHz being conceded after the next World Radio Conference in 2027, rather than after 2030 as had previously been expected, Italian interest in DVB-I as a remedy by facilitating migration to the internet has soared.

Mediaset, as the country’s largest commercial broadcaster, has been leading a DVB-I proof of concept trial that started in July 2020, with the last phase beginning in November 2023. The TV field there has since been awaiting publication by regulator AGCOM of guidelines for assignment and usage of LCNs (Logical Channel Numbers) for broadcasters and pay TV providers for broadband TV channel distribution.

That could also be over HbbTV as an earlier convergence standard, but the focus is now on DVB-I with its closer alignment with the internet. AGCOM was expected to organize ‘technical tables’ with the help of broadcasters, operators, associations and institutions, related to DVB-I and HbbTV.

In Germany there may be less urgency, but equal conviction that DVB-I has a major role to play for the future of converged TV services in the country. The emphasis there has been on constructing a unified DVB-I platform shared by all broadcasters and video service providers, in effect a broadband sequel of digital terrestrial.

Indeed, German media regulator Landesmedienanstalten invited all four main broadcast groups, ARD, ProSieben, Sat1, RTL and ZDF, as well as the lobbying agency for private broadcast, to participate in discussions. The rest of Europe has been looking to Germany for direction over the course of DVB-I deployment, according to Remo Vogel, who took over as DVB Chairman in July 2024.

“The aim of this initiative is a national DVB-I market introduction,” said Vogel in an interview at this year’s IBC show in Amsterdam. “Germany is the core, and the market is watching.”

France is among countries watching rather than forging ahead, despite having conducted some smaller DVB-I trials. The country shares Germany’s interest in a common streaming platform though, for scale economies and to focus development resources in a fragmented field.

This call was made in March 2024 by Delphine Ernotte, longstanding president of France Televisions, the country’s leading public service broadcaster, who extolled the virtue of having a single point of access for local programming to compete with the big international streamers.

“We’re stronger together,” said Ernotte at the event TV Series held annually in Lille, France. “I don’t have much faith that we can stand shoulder to shoulder with international services while all off in our own corners. That’s not how things work anymore.”

There is similar concern over the big streaming juggernaut in the US, and this has helped inspire ATSC 3.0, the third generation of it’s over the air technology, after skipping the second. But despite having gained some traction outside North America, notably in South Korea and Brazil, ATSC 3.0 divides opinion inside the US.

Proponents argue that ATSC 3.0 represents the future course for DTT worldwide towards full broadband integration, going further than Europe’s DVB-T2 and offering higher quality of service. They argue it is already becoming the reference terrestrial broadcasting technology worldwide in the way DVB-T2 almost was, an argument Brazil seems to have accepted. They highlight its performance and flexibility, as well as future proofing through extensible signaling, which will allow new technologies to be introduced less disruptively for existing ATSC 3.0 services.

ATSC 3.0 combines OTA broadcast signals with broadband, allowing live sports, shows and movies to broadcast over the air, while commercials, on-demand, and other premium content come over the internet. Three video formats are supported: legacy SD, at resolutions up to 720 x 480; interlaced HD, which supports signals up to 1080i; and progressive video, which supports resolutions from 1080p up to 4K UHD and high frame rates of 120 fps.

Opponents though point to the cost and need for a dedicated ATSC 3.0 tuner, which has so far deterred some major TV makers such as LG, never mind smartphone vendors for which the incremental cost is less obviously justifiable. Indeed, as The Broadcast Bridge has discussed in more detail, 5G Broadcast has emerged to challenge ATSC 3.0 because it would enable service providers to reach mobile devices more readily as these account for ever more video consumption.

ATSC 3.0 was driven partly by the desire to sustain local TV stations in the USA dependent for their survival on the continuation of DTT. European broadcasters used to be equally tenacious in defending DTT and the spectrum required to sustain it, but after successive bruising battles with the mobile industry at WRC conferences, have rather lost their stomach for the fight and edged towards broadband.

Meanwhile major US broadcasters have also stepped up to the ATSC 3.0 plate, with NBCUniversal in April 2024 launching what it called a personalized broadcast experience. This features ATSC 3.0 capabilities such as being able to restart or pause some linear programs as they go out or are in progress, as well as including hyper localized items like weather forecasts or severe weather warnings, on top of clips, episodes, and alternate programming. It was initially launched in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Miami.

Such services require ATSC 3.0’s unique integration between OTA broadcast channels and broadcast streams to enable coordinated interactivity across both. This requires support for two-way communication spanning both domains.

For pure streaming services HTML 5 has been the underlying protocol since around 2007 for transmitting the media from web server to browser or app on the client. This was augmented by Adaptive Bit Rate streaming for lower latency and better QoS over unpredictable unmanaged networks.

In this environment the user requests a service from a URL and there is a one-to-one correspondence between client and source. Under ATSC 3.0 the user requests a service, which may either access it over the internet via a URL or invoke an OTA broadcast channel.

Similarly, the broadcast side does not just transmit content one way but can invoke resources on the receiver, which is essential to enable integration with the broadband uplink. It allows content to be downloaded to the receiver for pause and playback.

Content can effectively then be streamed over the broadcast delivery mechanism, as well as unicast over the internet. Then content downloaded either way can be controlled by the usual streaming playback functions. And information specific to the reception of linear TV services, such as the status of language references or closed caption displays, can be accessed online.

It is not clear yet whether ATSC 3.0 will enable broadcast linear delivery to survive ultimately in the USA, but it does look as if it will last longer than in most of Europe. In the latter there is greater weight behind 5G Broadcast, and that may eventually prevail in the USA.

Elsewhere in the world a few countries are following the ATSC 3.0 line as we observed, but the wider force is towards streaming. In China, which rapidly rolled out 5G across the country, the world’s largest telco and cellular provider China Mobile has collaborated with China Media Group (CMG) and telecom equipment maker ZTE to demonstrate their own flavor of 5G Broadcast that takes advantage of recently introduced 5G capabilities.

This was demonstrated at the country’s Spring Festival Gala using 5G-Advanced, whose formal introduction only began with arrival of the 3GPP Release 18 standard in July 2024. This presented split-screen content switched on the fly between different viewpoints at the live broadcast site.

Japan is an interesting case since it produced the ISDB-T DTT standard, adopted in a slightly different form across much of South America. Japan might have followed the US line, and appeared to do so at first, before veering towards streaming.

Influenced by surveys showing young people were turning away from traditional television to an even greater extent than in many countries, Japan revised its Broadcasting Act in May 2024. Before that it was optional for the country’s public broadcaster NHK to offer internet streaming of all programs, but the new act makes this mandatory as of October 2025. NHK President Nobuo Inaba described this as a "historic turning point" for the broadcaster, and by implication the whole of Japanese TV.