OKLAHOMA CITY and TULSA, Okla.—Griffin Media has deployed Bitcentral’s Core News across KWTV and its KOTV, its flagship stations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla, respectively.

“Bitcentral’s Core News puts Griffin Media in a strong position as we transform our newsroom operations,” said Jack Conway, vice president of technology at Griffin Media.

“The system is intuitive for our teams, and we expect it to streamline how content moves between stations and improve how our producers work day-to-day. These upgrades ensure Griffin Media continues delivering the most trusted and best local reporting that our viewers across Oklahoma have counted on for 117 years.”

The rollout, a major investment in modernizing Griffin’s news operations, equips the station’s news teams with faster, more flexible and better connected production workflows.

The deployment includes Bitcentral’s Precis, Oasis, Create, Fusion Hybrid Storage (FHS) and additional playout and technical automation products for multi-station control room operations. Together, these technologies form a unified system that strengthens how KWTV and KOTV create, manage and distribute news. The adoption of Core News also extends a growing relationship between the companies, following Griffin’s 2024 implementation of ViewNexa Channels as a key component of its digital content distribution initiative.

KWTV’s Core News-powered newsroom officially launched on Nov. 2, 2025. KOTV launched later that month.

The Core News deployment brings better end-go-end production to Griffin by integrating editing, asset management and playout through Precis, Oasis and Create. It enables real-tome collaboration with Oasis sharing and hybrid storage that allows the stations to exchange content instantly and operate more cohesively.

It also offers the station group greater operational flexibility by making control room resources scalable and providing smarter content storage systems to support future expansion, Bitcentral said.

“Core News was built to give newsrooms practical tools that drive real efficiency in daily production,” said Bitcentral CEO Sam Kamel. “Griffin Media’s implementation is a powerful example of that impact—stronger collaboration across stations, smoother content movement and highly efficient production from story creation all the way through to playout. We’re excited that Griffin chose Bitcentral for this strategic upgrade, and we’ll be there to support their growth for years to come.”

More information is available on the company’s website.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.—As a private, family-owned, Oklahoma-based multimedia company, Griffin Communications is committed to keeping Oklahomans safe, informed and entertained, and has been serving our community through our TV and radio stations for more than 55 years.

To continue this legacy of service, we started a project in 2019 to restructure and reinvent our newsrooms to evolve with the ever-changing media landscape by updating our content strategy and evaluating equipment needs. With 40 mobile, multimedia journalists and 25 photographers, we wanted to outfit them with the latest camera equipment that would enable them to easily shoot and create content on-the-go throughout the state.

SUPPORTING OUR JOURNALISTS

When you make a decision to upgrade your newsroom, there are many factors to consider—functionality, techs and specs, competitive price point and compatibility with existing hardware and customer service. These factors, coupled with the trust we already had in Panasonic, gave us the confidence to purchase 40 AG-CX350 handheld cameras and 26 shoulder-mounted AG-PX380G cameras to support our journalists and photographers and our new content workflow.

We are dedicated to providing our journalists with the best technology to produce the best stories. Greg Blackwood and Oscar Pea, our chief photojournalists, were excited to work with the new Panasonic cameras, particularly the CX350s due to the camera’s efficient design. The CX350 allows our mobile, multimedia journalists to gather b-roll and interviews quickly as the camera’s compact size and weight make it easy for our journalists to move around while still capturing quality video.

Along with ease of use, the CX350 also provides live streaming, best-in-class picture quality and a superior digital zoom. These high-performance features, coupled with the intuitive nature of the camera allow our journalists to shoot their own standups and live shots with very little practice, which is key to staying ahead of breaking news and reporting the stories that mean the most to our communities.

CHANGING THE PROCESS

As media companies are constantly faced with budgetary concerns and advancing technology, we took this opportunity with the new cameras to recreate Griffin Communications’ content workflows. By providing Panasonic’s handheld and shoulder-mount cameras to our mobile, multimedia journalists, we can create more content more efficiently. In fact, we doubled the content produced everyday by reimagining and restructuring our newsrooms, staffing and workflows. The Panasonic CX350 and PX380G cameras were the perfect tools to achieve this goal.

In addition to the quality of Panasonic’s broadcast cameras, we’ve also been very pleased with the level of customer support Panasonic has provided us. We’ve never purchased a warranty before, but with the affordability of Panasonic’s extended warranty, we went ahead with it. The warranty has been a huge help. Things happen with equipment when you’re in the field, and we’ve been so pleased with the repairs and responsiveness from the Panasonic team. Not only has customer service been great, but the level of the service is by far matched with the quality of products and technology Panasonic produces.

Todd Spessard is the vice president of Content at Griffin Communications and leads Oklahoma’s largest team of journalists and has helped build a newsroom culture dedicated to excellence. He can be reached at todd.spessard@griffin.news. For more information visit, www.griffin.news.

For additional information, visit na.panasonic.com.

WATERLOO, ONTARIO—Griffin Communications’ coverage of local weather and news can no take place on site thanks to the addition of Dejero mobile transmitter technology.

The Oklahoma-based media company has acquired Dejero’s EnGo and GoBox mobile transmitters to support live broadcasts of news and weather events that take place in the region. The newly installed technology allows that broadcaster to receive a signal in remote locations.

In addition, Dejero’s VSET rack-mounted encoder/transmitter has also been added to Griffin’s newsgathering vehicles. This cloud-managed video platform enables users to broadcast life using bonded cellular, Wi-Fi and portable satellite connections.

Through Dejero’s management system, Griffin Communications is able to set up and manage its equipment, as well as keep track of its data usage from a web browser.

BEAVERTON, ORE.—Tektronix’s Sentry series of video network monitors are heading to the plains of Oklahoma to Oklahoma City’s CBS-Affiliate, which is owned by Griffin Communications. Griffin is using the monitors to monitor the video and audio quality of experience it delivers to its viewers and to demonstrate compliance with the CALM Act for audio loudness and closed captioning requirements.

Sentry

Tektronix provided Griffin with its Sentry Edge video network monitors for its broadcast facilities in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The Sentry Edge is optimized for program content and provides full reporting and alerting capabilities as well as detailed statistics and simplified graphics. Tektronix’s Sentry systems also feature a 60-day system log.

The Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters recently used the Sentry system to conduct a mock FCC inspection of Griffin’s operation.

Tektronix is a provider of test, measurement and monitoring systems.