INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.— After being sold by Nexstar Media to Circle Broadcasting in 2019, the CW affiliate WISH-TV in Indianapolis, Indiana has been pursuing a strategy of expanding its production of local content and has been relying on technologies from Ross Video to ramp up production and improve graphics.
The station currently uses XPression, OverDrive and Acuity from Ross Video.
According to Chris Newman, graphics operations manager at WISH-TV, the change in ownership to Circle City Broadcasting, which is owned by DuJuan McCoy, brought with it a change in focus.
“DuJuan McCoy is very focused on increasing the amount of local content that we produce and building the local audience,” Newman said. “He has big plans for the station and that means a renewed focus on creative content, efficiently produced.”
Just prior to the sale of the station to Circle City, Nexstar had been moving to the station to the XPression suite from Ross Video and was developing a new graphics package. Newman, a graphics expert with 20 years experience, noted that Ross helped smooth the transition with educational materials and help from its staff.
Migrating from one solution to another can often be stressful, but Newman was pleased with the overall process.
“One of the great advantages of XPression is that every box is a CG generator as well as a clip player – that’s enabled us to cut down on the number of boxes we need and migrate away from our previous clip players,” he said. “I also have to say that Visual Logic has been an amazingly powerful tool. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve started working with a creative idea in Visual Logic and the tool has taken me somewhere else, opening up new doors and producing results that are even better than I’d initially imagined. Then when I’m all done, I can publish the project and all the elements ‘travel’ together with no missing parts.”
With XPression now firmly embedded in WISH-TV’s workflows, Chris Newman has been looking to the future.
“DuJuan, our owner, has a very progressive outlook and is happy to consider any new technologies or solutions if the business case stacks up and it will help improve our efficiency and the look and feel of our content,” he said. “As an example, we recently purchased the XPression Tessera solution to render graphics on some unusually shaped LED displays we have on-set. It’s dramatically improved the way the graphics look on-screen so that was a worthwhile investment. We are also looking at XPression Maps for our news mapping platform and Streamline for media asset management amongst other things.”
Owner DuJuan McCoy also has ambitions beyond the local Indianapolis area. “DuJuan is creating a new national station called the Multicultural News Network – MNN – focusing on minority ethnic groups here in the US,” Newman said. “The new network will be based in the same building as WISH-TV so it’s going to be an exciting time for us here.”
“We’ve had great success with XPression, OverDrive and Acuity [from Ross], and I’m sure that would only increase if we tapped into other elements of the Ross ecosystem,” Newman added.
Currently WISH-TV, which is a CW affiliate, offers viewers 76.5 hours per week of local news and local programming and provides around the clock information on its digital platforms. The station serves more than a million households.
