ATLANTA—Gray Television has announced a new agreement with Paramount Global that renews all of Gray’s existing CBS network affiliations, encompassing seven markets acquired from Meredith Corporation and 47 legacy markets.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
As part of the agreement, Gray’s CBS affiliates will continue to be available locally to subscribers on Paramount+ and widely distributed across all traditional and virtual MVPD platforms.
“At a time when local news is more valued than ever – and under greater pressure than ever - Gray is very pleased to have reached an agreement that builds upon the decades-long relationship with CBS in dozens of markets, large and small,” said Pat LaPlatney, co-CEO of Gray Television. “With this renewal, we intend to continue to invest in local news, weather and sports reporting, while bringing CBS’ premium programming to our local communities.”
Gray is the largest independent owner of CBS affiliates in the country, covering nearly 18% of the U.S. television households and nearly 22 million households. In 2022, according to Comscore, Gray’s CBS affiliated stations had the highest all-day ratings among all local stations in 29 markets and the first or second highest all-day ratings in 45 markets, comprising 83 percent of Gray’s CBS portfolio. Nearly all of Gray’s CBS affiliates have been broadcasting CBS network programming from their very first days on the air.
In announcing the new affiliation agreement, Gray also highlighted its ongoing investment in local news and some of the ratings success those investments helped produce.
In less than two years since Gray acquired Meredith and Quincy Media in the second half of 2021, the company said that it has approved capital investments exceeding $74 million for those stations, including more than $40 million between WANF, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta, and KMOV, the CBS affiliate in St. Louis.
Across just the seven former Meredith CBS markets, Gray has launched local news bureaus, added state of the art equipment, created more than 100 hours of additional locally produced news programming each week, and added 154 full-time local journalists and other station employees. The station group also noted that Gray is now recruiting to fill an additional 74 open positions in those seven CBS markets.
Gray’s network affiliated and independent television stations were viewed by an average of 1.7 million households (over 2 million adults) during prime time hours and by an average of more than 2.2 million households (over 2.5 million adults) during late news time periods according to Nielsen’s data for April and May 2023. Gray’s television stations serve 113 television markets that collectively reach approximately 36 percent of US television households. The television station portfolio includes 80 markets with the top-rated television station and 102 markets with the first and/or second highest rated television station.
