Ever evolving: New Mexico PBS strives to keep pace with the digital world

As digital continues to evolve, there’s a new reality each day for Franz Joachim.

Joachim, New Mexico PBS general manager, is on the ground trying to find ways for public television to exist in an ever-changing digital world.

He’s not standing still.

“This is something I’m pushing at a national level,” Joachim says. “These are conversations we are having in the PBS system in the public television system. Between stations, with PBS, with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and with American Public Television.”

Joachim says it’s no secret that broadcasting is at high risk because the internet has everything.

“As more and more of what we do moves to the internet, there are less and less reasons for transmitters on mountaintops sending out signals,” he says. “Public television only exists because of transmitters on mountaintops. We are a creation of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act. That’s what created PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Back in the day, when they were first handing out broadcast licenses, there was literally carved out a special place in the broadcast spectrum for non-commercial, educational licenses that are protected.”

Joachim has been at the forefront of keeping New Mexico PBS ahead of the game.

The station serves Albuquerque, Santa Fe, central and northern New Mexico, as well as the Navajo Nation.

He has been involved in television production for over 47 years, starting in high school with audio visuals.

Joachim started with KNME-TV as production manager in 1999, served as manager of production and broadcast operations from 2003 until 2010, where he oversaw the conversion to file based editing and our first multi-stream digital master control. He was promoted to director of content in 2010. Franz was named general manager and CEO of New Mexico PBS in 2013.

Under his leadership NMPBS has become the alpha station in the PBS system for implementation of the sIX Interconnection, the first PBS station to fully implement ATSC3.0 broadcasting, and one of a few stations to offer datacasting services for both education and public safety.

When cable and satellite TV came along, each used enough airwaves for the Federal Communications Commission to regulate them as well.

Joachim says there was legislation that forced the providers to carry PBS or find a way to make it possible for PBS to be on both carriers.

“But the internet doesn’t do that,” he says. “There is no public media on the internet. There are no rules or regulations that say I have to act like a public television station on the internet. I want to protect what public television offers.”

Streaming is the place to be, and New Mexico PBS has followed suit by being available on different streaming platforms as well as its own PBS app.

Joachim asks the question, “How does public television maintain its relevance and identity in a digital world?”

Enter Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.

In 2009, ATSC was created so public television could be transmitted digitally, which is why viewers had to get a converter box or a new TV.

With ATSC3, it’s already being placed in new TVs, which are called NextGen TV.

“The fundamental difference between ATSC1 and ATSC3 is that ATSC3 is an IP-based protocol,” Joachim says. “It’s basically broadcasting the same way the internet does. It’s effectively the convergence of broadcast and broadband. There’s a benefit and some drawbacks.”

Joachim says despite the convergence of broadcast and broadband, there is still a need for transmitters on mountaintops.

“They are still needed because they are part of the broadband ecosystem,” he says. “For public media to continue, we’ve got to be part of making sure that broadcast entities are still part of the FCC, that’s still part of the Public Communications Act, that those broadcast entities are also part of the internet, because that’s our way in.”