Gray Media runs 1,300 digital touchpoints across 117 markets on one Quickplay platform, with 271 live and 126 FAST channels under a single management layer
“Two years from now, it’s not going to replace the human that’s out in the local marketplace … giving you play-by-play of what’s happening on the streets in that community.”
“Utilize all the tools and resources that are in front of us. Don’t run from that, but don’t utilize it in ways to sacrifice our audience. The communities count on us.”
— Mike Braun, Senior Operating Officer, Gray Media
Gray Media, the largest owner of top-rated local television stations in the U.S., has put the digital operations of all 117 of its markets onto a single cloud platform. Some 1,300 websites, mobile apps and connected-TV apps now run on one system, alongside 271 live channels and 126 free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. Quickplay designed the platform; Google Cloud built it.
“We were able to pull it off in one year,” Mike Braun, Gray’s senior operating officer and chief digital officer, said on stage at NAB Show New York 2026, held Oct. 21-22 at the Javits Center. The reason was the spread of Gray’s footprint, from Atlanta, a top-10 market, to North Platte, Nebraska. “The staff sizing is different, but something that’s similar regardless of market size is content,” Braun said. More local journalism, he added, “couldn’t happen if we had different technologies in all these different places.”
The workload problem has a number attached. In a report released with Caretta Research around NAB Show Las Vegas in April, “The Broadcaster Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” Quickplay found that North American broadcasters spend about 75% of their time on technical workflows and about 25% creating content. Parks Associates, wrapping up the April show, noted that vertical video and social-first distribution have moved to the center of mainstream media planning.
Gray’s position is that the product has not changed….