Gray Cuts Boxes, Grows HD, 16×9 News

By Andrew Gauthier 

TVNewsCheck

Since joining Gray Television as its chief tech a couple of years ago, Jim Ocon has been on a mission to streamline operations at the 36-station group. Mostly, this involves reducing the number of hardware and software products and the attendant support and maintenance costs.

“If you were to compare Gray to candy, Gray would be a bag of Skittles,” he says in this interview with TVNewsCheck. “We have every color and every flavor. We’re trying to get down to at least three flavors instead of 16.”

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Ocon, who previously worked at Pappas Telecasting and is based at WOWT, Gray’s NBC affiliate in Omaha, Neb., also discusses the group’s plans for rolling out HD or widescreen news at more stations, the limits of centralized monitoring and control and the troubles with VHF in a digital world. More…

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