Just over a year ago, the North American Broadcasters Association named Rebecca Hanson as its director general, succeeding Michael McEwen.
Hanson has a long history of working on broadcast policy in the United States, including as a member of the FCC’s spectrum task force for the National Broadband Plan, and working at XM Satellite Radio, Sinclair Broadcast Group and HC2 Broadcast Holdings.
At the recent NAB Show she spoke in sessions about cybersecurity, new media channels and the role of the International Telecommunication Union, of which NABA is a member.
Radio World: Why is the ITU important?
Rebecca Hanson: First, the ITU coordinates the uses of various bands of spectrum for all radio communications around the world, so that none of these services cause harmful interference to the others.
This helps enable interoperability and international roaming, so that people can use the same devices in different countries without causing interference with existing services.
Broadcasters need to be part of this conversation to ensure their services do not suffer interference, or worse that more broadcast spectrum isn’t repurposed for other services, whether that be from the UHF, C-Band, wireless mics or satellite.
Second, the ITU coordinates advancements in radio and telecom technology worldwide. Broadcasting no longer has its own standalone technology roadmap but is converging with other media and IP-based technologies. The ITU coordinates technology development with the goal of ensuring seamless operation of hardware and software regionally and internationally, and if broadcasters aren’t at the table, their technology preferences may be eclipsed by others that have global momentum.
Finally, the ITU evaluates and prioritizes spectrum management techniques. Broadcasters have an interest in supporting spectrum efficiencies because those efficiencies can nullify demands on the UHF spectrum from other claimants.
RW: What type of ITU proceedings has NABA been involved in?
Hanson: NABA has official status as a “non-governmental organization” or NGO at the ITU, which means we and our members have a seat at the table. We submit and comment on technology and spectrum recommendations at the ITU Radiocommunication Sector, or ITU-R, including high dynamic range (HDR) monitoring work that we presented at the NAB Show, and the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector, or ITU-T.
RW: How does radio fit into this discussion?
Hanson: We have worked on digital radio issues, including IBOC technology, as well as monitoring activation of FM radio receivers in smartphones. More recently we are following ITU developments in the area of wireless power transfer, to protect radio against harmful interference from wireless charging stations. There are interests pushing for standards on wireless power transfer at the ITU, and our job is to ensure that this does not evolve at the expense of radio services.
RW: What other initiatives are at the top of NABA’s priority list, relevant to radio?
Hanson: One important area of focus is radio’s role in the emergency alerting systems of both the U.S. and Canada. U.S. regulators are considering questions like whether EAS can be virtualized and proposing regulations on multilingual services, all of which is of interest to NABA’s radio members.
RW: NABA released a document about hybrid radio and metadata last year. What’s your assessment of radio’s progress on metadata?
Hanson: As I understand it, while many radio broadcasters do a great job with metadata individually, radio as a whole, looking at an entire local market’s adoption of metadata, is lacking. NABA has been a strong proponent, and have made the case for the benefits of metadata, but adoption has been slow across entire markets.
RW: How do you assess the rollout of hybrid radio platforms so far in North America?
Hanson: There are around 6 million vehicles in the world with DTS AutoStage, Xperi’s hybrid radio product, and about 65% of them are in North America. This is an exciting development and I expect the implementation of hybrid radio by automakers to continue to grow, which of course makes it even more important that broadcasters have good metadata offerings. And now a European company, Radioplayer, is offering an alternative service in North America; they are already well-established in Canada. So I hope as more options come to market, hybrid radio will continue to grow.
RW: You’ve been in your NABA position for a year. What do you consider your main accomplishment so far, and what’s the biggest priority?
Hanson: Our members set NABA priorities, and one of those is cybersecurity for broadcasters. I was very impressed with the variety of checklists and best practices that NABA has produced in the past couple of years. Now we are helping broadcasters implement those best practices through programs like our Cyber University, the NABA Cyber Alert Network and our budding Supply Chain Council, which focuses on the critical role that vendors play in securing broadcast facilities from cyber threats.
In terms of priorities for 2024, we go deeper on media sustainability, which our members care about. We will also support Project Origin in its efforts to get the broadcast supply chain(s) to incorporate their C2PA technology into their product development cycles — C2PA is the name of a coding standard that verifies the origin of a piece of content, to ensure that it hasn’t been tampered with during the production process. And, like everyone else, we are helping radio and television stations navigate the new world of AI.
RW: How has your background, including working with an FCC task force and working at XM Satellite and Sinclair, framed your perspectives on the issues facing NABA members?
Hanson: Those experiences have provided a very useful context for the issues that NABA addresses, but unlike policy issues, NABA focuses on operational solutions to common challenges broadcasters face, such as streamlining workflows, improving technology standards (like HDR), or other practical answers to make broadcasting more efficient in this era of financial and strategic uncertainty. So I have been learning more on the technology front, which keeps it challenging.
