Free Over-the-Air TV Is Getting a 4K Makeover

In the before times, there was NTSC. This was the broadcasting standard in the US for over half a century. It was officially replaced in 2009 by ATSC, aka HDTV. Now ATSC itself is being replaced in many markets by NextGen TV, which was formerly called ATSC 3.0 (there was no 2.0).

NextGen TV offers a variety of new technologies, including the ability to broadcast 4K, HDR and more. Because of how it works, you’ll likely get better reception if you’re far from the TV tower. 

The short version is: NextGen is free over-the-air television with potentially more channels and better image quality than older over-the-air broadcasts.

Most major cities carry NextGen TV stations, as do a lot of smaller ones, with more rolling out every month. The transition to NextGen is voluntary, but so far many stations in most markets are embracing the change. A lot of that has to do with groundwork that was laid during the digital transition to HDTV. Since everything is digital already, upgrading to NextGen doesn’t have the same high cost that switching from analog NTSC to digital ATSC (1.0) did. There are also new ways stations can make money, which certainly softens the blow.

You can find out what stations are already active in your area at watchnextgentv.com/markets.

All you need is a NextGen tuner and an antenna. If you’re shopping for a new TV, many current models have built-in NextGen TV tuners. This includes many models from LG, Sony, Hisense and Samsung. There are a handful of external tuners as well, though not as many as you might think — at least, for now.

The antenna part is fairly easy: There are a lot of inexpensive options. If you have an antenna from the HDTV days, it will likely work just fine.

This is the ultimate question, isn’t it? What good is free content if it’s not content you want to watch? NextGen is a broadcast standard that typically covers the “broadcasters” of yore (namely ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and PBS). These aren’t the only channels you’ll find, but these will be the core offerings in most areas.

The specifics, however, are more complex. Not every station in your area will have converted to NextGen, though conveniently if you have the antenna and tuner, you should be able to get all the “ATSC 1.0” (aka old-school HDTV) broadcasts. So you should be able to get all the major broadcasters for free over the air one way or another.

In many areas, however, you’ll be able to get much more than those. Most stations run multiple sub-channels, which in turn run different programming under the same “channel” banner. Plus, there are smaller broadcasters with varied content. Will you be able to watch The Last of Us over the air? Almost certainly not, but Chicago Fire, NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy and most major sports are all free over the air. 

Nothing is ever truly free, right? In this case, you pay with your time by watching ads. Back in the olden days, aka before streaming, there were things called DVRs that recorded programming to a hard drive for later watching. You could fast-forward through the commercials. It was A Thing. And it still is if you pay for cable or satellite TV. 

There are a couple of NextGen DVRs already, and some of the other tuners have the ability to record on local or networked hard drives. So if you don’t want to watch 20 minutes of every hour guessing what a prescription drug does based on its possible side effects, look for one of those.