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Centralcast and the Digital Convergence Alliance are merging to form CentralCast Alliance LLC, a non-profit entity that will provide integrated management and other technology services to television stations across the country.
Centralcast, a nonprofit 2012 consortium of public stations in New York state, and the Digital Convergence Alliance, founded by public broadcasters in Florida, launched a decade ago with an initiative supported by the CPB to coordinate and consolidate the operations of public television broadcasting.
Centralcast has expanded to provide services for about 27 stations and manage more than 100 content channels, including Create TV. The Digital Convergence Alliance has grown from six stations in Florida to include public TV partners in Chicago, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Dallas and Champaign, Ill.
“Technology works best when it’s shared and honed regularly,” said Paul Grove, CEO of WEDU in Tampa, Fla., and a DCA board member, in a news release announcing the merger. “By building a large array of parallel stations, we will all have greater control over infrastructure investment and full access to the latest technologies for core management and network performance.”
The CentralCast Alliance plans to bring an additional 40 channels of content under its control when the transformation of the system is completed in August 2023. It will add cloud-based and top-top services and help lead its stations to ATSC 3.0 or NextGen TV. . DCA stations will begin transitioning their original streams to the Centralcast facility in Syracuse, NY, early next year.
When the merger is complete, CentralCast Alliance will be the largest non-profit provider of shared management services. Public Media Management, a cloud-based content vendor created in 2015 through a partnership between Sony and GBH in Boston, is now affiliated with Boulder, Colo.-based Public Media Group and Sony.
“Backed by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Centralcast and DCA were pioneers, providing integrated management services to public television stations,” said Robert Altman, chairman of the Centralcast board and CEO of WMHT in Troy, N.Y. “After ten years, the time is right for us to move forward together. “
Shadi Sabra, CEO of Centralcast, will lead the new organization along with CTO Steve White. “The first step of the new company will be to use the technology of the CentralCast Alliance and the existing infrastructure to provide a very high-value solution for any station whose main control provider does not have access to live content when the PBS satellite system goes down,” said Sabra.
An interim steering committee will lead the transition and work with BIA Advisory Services on a strategic advisory basis. Altman and WNET Group CEO Neal Shapiro represented CentralCast on the committee. DCA representatives include Board Chairman David Mullins, GM of WFSU in Tallahassee, Fla., and Grove.
“I believe that when we combine our experiences, we can create an organization that will provide an exciting future for all public broadcasters and the communities they serve,” said Shapiro, Centralcast’s acting treasurer.
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