ATLANTA, Ga.—Gray Television is working to reimagine the local TV news experience by using NextGen TV broadcasts at its WCTV station to deliver hyperlocal news content, reports Andrew Heyward, senior research professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in a recent article.
The article notes that Gray is testing a “broadcaster app” that works with ATSC 3.0 that allows viewers to call up news videos and weather graphics from their zip code.
This allows the WCTV Gray station in Tallahassee, Florida to serve more hyper local content to all its viewers, including those in Valdosta and Thomasville in Georgia.
Gray worked with Pearl TV and Yotta Media Labs on the idea, which received $50,000 Knight Foundation program grant to help develop the custom app, Heywood reports.
“[This] approach can now be a blueprint for any TV station,” Gray CTO David Burke is quoted as saying. “And part of our deliverable to Arizona State is to document the end to end: This is what a newsroom would have to do. This is what the digital or technology guys would have to do. And then you could replicate this.”
The full article is available here.
