Verance, Fincons Partner to Speed ATSC 3.0 Development in US, HbbTV in Europe

Verance will partner with Fincons Group to speed and expand the development of ATSC 3.0 in the U.S. and HbbTV in Europe, said the companies Tuesday. ATSC adopted the Verance Aspect audio watermark technology for 3.0 nearly four years ago (see 1504030030), and Aspect "is currently being adapted for use within the HbbTV ecosystem," they said. Fincons is a systems integration company that partnered to develop several over-the-top service offerings in Europe, including the Mediaset Play OTT platform launched in Italy during last year's World Cup. The companies' initial projects will focus on accelerating “readiness” of 3.0 and HbbTV in both markets, they said: “Examples include the identification and development of leading consumer offerings, business modeling, proof of concept and market trial management, retailer education, and service lifecycle management and operations.” By deploying Aspect, “programmers gain cross-platform audience measurement data and new revenue opportunities such as audience targeting and addressable advertising,” said Verance. “Viewers gain more personalized and interactive experiences; device manufacturers gain a new opportunity to market and sell TVs; and advertisers gain linear measurement and attribution capabilities.” Without Aspect, the "reach and scale" of "Next Gen TV experiences" will be "significantly smaller," said Verance. "In 2020, only 20% of ATSC 3.0-enabled connected TVs in the U.S. are expected to be able to receive Next Gen TV experiences without Aspect. This is because the metadata and triggers required for these experiences are not carried by cable operators due to their different transmission protocols. Aspect enables this information to be automatically recovered by the TV regardless of distribution path."