Launched at CES in January, ROXi Music Service is an interactive music service for both smart TVs and, initially through a partnership with Sinclair Broadcasting, NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) broadcast television. At the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) tradeshow in Las Vegas this week, the Pearl TV consortium of U.S. broadcasters announced plans to use ROXi’s FastStream technology to create other forms of interactive TV, including news, sports, and entertainment in addition to music.
Sinclair is immediately adding news to its previously announced deal for ROXi’s music channels, with the two companies demonstrating 3 News Interactive Las Vegas, a local channel that allows viewers to skip news stories that don’t interest them, pause, fast forward, rewind, or select individual categories such as weather, local news, headlines, investigate, or national news.
ROXi’s FastStream technology allows interactive TV channel experiences to be broadcast over the airwaves using the NextGen TV standard. Users will need a television equipped with an ATSC 3.0 tuner (many current models from Sony Bravia, LG, Samsung, and Hisense fit the bill). Viewers can also watch with a set-top box. The TV or the set-top box must also have a connection to the internet.
ROXi
ROXi says its FastStream technology will make the experience a seamless one for viewers. The ATSC 3.0 tuner will ping the broadcast choice several times a second, but the actual content playback will be delivered via the internet connection. That’s how ROXi can offer all the interactive features that users know from streaming apps: Skip, pause, fast-forward, and bringing up lyrics will feel instantaneous to a viewer.
Music is still at the forefront of the ROXi strategy. They are set to release a previously announced app for Roku, Google TV, Android TV, and most major TV platforms that will offer even more viewing flexibility without the need for a broadcast, as well as several exciting features that should make music playback on a television a far more compelling proposition than it’s been before. You can learn more from our earlier coverage of ROXi music.
ROXi founder Rob Lewis says the ROXi Music app will go live in the United States at the same time Sinclair launches its local broadcast versions of the ROXi Music channel. Check this map to see if Sinclair has stations in your local market. Both the downloadable app and the broadcast channels should be available in the next couple of months. The digital broadcast channels will operate on the secondary bands that Sinclair currently uses for its Charge!, TBD, and Comet networks.
This experiment could get much bigger very quickly, since Pearl TV represents more than 820 local television stations that are part of the biggest broadcasting groups in the United States. Virtually every media market includes at least one station from the Cox Media Group, Gray Television, TEGNA, Graham Media Group, Hearst Television, Nexstar, Scripps, or Sinclair Broadcast Group.
