Tegna And Gray Form OTT Partnership

Tegna Inc. and Gray Television today jointly announced a strategic partnership in which Gray will acquire a minority ownership interest in Premion, Tegna’s Connected TV (CTV)/over-the-top (OTT) advertising business.

As part of this new partnership, Gray will serve as a reseller of Premion’s services across all of Gray’s 93 television markets. The Premion advertising platform enables local, regional and national advertisers to reach audiences through premium, long-form, live and on-demand video programming delivered across a broad array of streaming platforms and devices at scale.

Premion has direct relationships with more than 125 premium branded networks ranging from major media networks to virtual MVPDs and direct OTT aggregators.

“Since our launch of Premion in 2016, we’ve quickly scaled the product and business to capitalize on the dramatic shift of audiences to streaming television,” said Dave Lougee, Tegna president-CEO. “The Premion business exceeded $100 million in revenue in 2019, and we expect double-digit growth rates going forward.

“We’re seeing tremendous growth opportunities in OTT, particularly at the local level. Our partnership with Gray will further accelerate Premion’s already exceptional growth by expanding our local footprint and leveraging Gray’s strong performing stations.”

Pat LaPlatney, Gray’s president and Co-CEO, said: “We have been impressed with how Premion has quickly established itself as the premier OTT advertising platform with an unrivaled, trusted brand among advertisers. We are equally excited to invest in Premion, and participate in the high-growth OTT business, as well as the ability to resell Premion’s services to local advertisers in our markets.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Gray will resell Premion in its local television markets, and Tegna and Gray will each have the right to independently sell Premion in markets where they both operate a local television station. The sale of spot television advertising is not part of this agreement, and Gray and Tegna will continue to sell spot advertising for their respective stations without any involvement from the other party.

Tegna will continue to oversee and control the Premion business.