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Local streaming news formats continue to evolve past their initial, plant-the-flag stage. One example is Gray Television, whose Local News Live service was initially conceived as a way to fill in the cracks between time-shifted streaming local newscasts on Gray stations’ OTT apps.
At launch, Local News Live was a bit rough and ready, produced with a minimum of studio dressing and on the fly. In March, however, the service moved from its original digs in Omaha, Neb., to a sharper studio space in Washington, D.C., and it hired a small team of anchors to add some polish to its presentation.
In this Talking TV conversation, Kyle Rogers, news director for Local News Live, explains what’s different about this new iteration of the service. He discusses the storytelling and in-depth advantages inherent to streaming, where time constraints are less onerous than on a live, linear newscast. And he anticipates what’s next as Local News Live gets its footing.
Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.
Michael Depp: Gray Television’s Local News Live launched in 2021 as a sort of news content backstop for the company’s OTT desks and each of its stations. Produced out of Omaha, Nebraska, it was a simple, low-budgeted news DJing operation, filling in the spaces between streaming local newscasts.
Fast forward to the present and Local News Live’s operations have been shifted to Washington, D.C. Budgets and staff are bigger, sets are slicker and news deejays are now proper anchors. What viewers now see is