Looking at AI from a business lens and what it can do — “create capacity” — is a centerpoint of how Graham Media Group is using generative artificial intelligence in the right way, and ensuring the TV station owner doesn’t run afoul of the law.
That’s a statement shared by the company’s CEO during the closing Executive Super Session at Forecast on Wednesday afternoon in New York.
With Steve Jones, President/CEO of Skyview Networks serving as the moderator, CEO Catherine Badalamente notes how AI is being used for SEO and how the headlines on the TV station websites Graham uses has been put to use.
From a broadcast standard, “that will be determined,” noting that looking at the business as a digital media company that has “an amazing broadcast asset” is core to how AI’s implementation is being implemented at the Graham Holdings unit that includes flagship NBC affiliate WDIV-4 in Detroit.
Badalamente was a Forecast TV co-chair, while Salem Media Group CEO Dave Santrella served as Forecast Radio co-chair. He appeared on the panel, as did Pat LaPlatney, the co-CEO and President of Gray Television.
“One of the challenges for the people who have been in the business for a long time is that they look at these assets and think about what they did 10 years ago,” LaPlatney said. “We have got to get out of that. We have a pretty big digital footprint, and a product that is a 20 hour per day news service that is curated out of Washington, D.C., and we are starting to produce syndicated shows from there.”
With content development and the use of AI, marrying digital and linear platforms can come easier.
A FRESH REGULATORY WORRY
Should the FCC be the judge of how local radio or TV properly supports the community?
Jones, as moderator, put Salem head Santrella on the hot seat. Noting a proposed Notice of Proposed Rulemaking circulating among the Commissioners drafted by Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the plan would put preference toward radio and TV stations creating local news content when it comes to license renewals and transfer applicants.
“The minute that the FCC has that level of overreach, when they start to become the editors and censors in what they consider to be quality content for the community, we should all be very scared of that,” Santrella said.
Also on the panel: Bill Wilson, the CEO of Townsquare Media, who was incorrectly introduced by Jones as with Alpha Media; the error was taken lightheartedly. Wilson shared with Forecast attendees of how its “digital first” approach has made it more fiscally healthy than other radio station owners, and how an investment into live events and fairs was a quick in-and-out under previous leadership after Townsquare realized it was not the right profit generation plan for the company.
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