ATLANTA—Gray Media has announced a deal with baseball’s Kansas City Royals in which its stations will simulcast 10 regular-season game telecasts with incumbent rightsholder FanDuel Sports Network.

Games will be shown on Gray-owned CBS affiliate KCTV, MyNetwork station KSMO-TV or both on Sundays throughout baseball season, the station group said, with selected games announced at a later date.

The simulcasts will greatly increase the telecasts’ reach and access, providing a new way for nearly 7 million households to watch the Royals via free over-the-air broadcasts on Gray stations, the Major League Baseball team said

All 10 games will be broadcast on KSMO, with at least six also airing on KCTV. Gray stations cover much of the Royals’ home television territory, which inxludes markets in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas.

“Sharing our games, highlighting our world-class athletes, and telling our story to as many people as possible is a top priority for us,” Royals president of business operations Brooks Sherman said. “This agreement gives our fans the power to watch however they want, whether that’s on cable, streaming or local TV. We are thrilled to partner with Gray Media and know their experience and expertise will be beneficial for both the Royals and our fans.”

Added KCTV-KSMO Vice President and General Manager Curtis Miles: “KCTV5, KSMO and Gray Media are thrilled to bring the Royals back to free, over-the-air television. Gray Media has made significant investments in live sports, and we’re proud to bring viewers what they want.”

The Royals and Gray will also collaborate on ancillary programming designed to connect fans to the team, the broadcaster said. Royals players, coaches, leadership and alumni could be featured in content that brings fans closer than ever and adds ways to follow the team beyond games, Gray said.

More information on the selected games and additional programming will be released prior to opening day, set for March 27 against the Cleveland Guardians.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Hearst Television ABC affiliate KMBC in Kansas City, Mo. deployed gear from TVU networks to provide local and on-site coverage of Super Bowl LVII last week. Coverage included local watch parties, at-game interviews, and fan celebrations during the championship which saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles in the last minutes of the game. 

Having prior experience of dealing with bandwidth limitations at crowded events like watch parties and fan celebrations, KMBC—for the 2023 SUper Bowl celebrations—deployed five TVU One 5G video transmitters; TVU Partyline cloud collaboration solution; TVU MLink uplink transmitter, and TVU Grid for IP-based video switching, routing and distribution to capture and deliver video from Kansas City and Phoenix - the championship host city.

“The beauty of the TVU One is that they’ve gotten to the point with IS+ that they’re so reliable we can anticipate bandwidth challenges on-site and correct them before they happen,” said Neeley Schmitz, Assistant News Director, KMBC-TV. “There were thousands of people at a watch party in downtown Kansas City on Sunday. We had some bandwidth challenges there. We simply adjusted the bit rate down and increased the latency by one second. The shot was clean without any issues. That ability to immediately adapt our equipment to the environment was crucial.”

TVU One delivers high-quality live video over a 5G cellular bonded infrastructure, according to the company Using its proprietary IS+ technology, all TVU uplink solutions use any combination of cellular, satellite, microwave, WiFi and Ethernet IP connections to deliver live HD video from practically any location. IS+ allows any IP connection at any time without stopping the transmission.

For the victory parade on Feb. 15h, KMBC set up four TVU One’s at various locations along the route using network connectivity, and one TVU One fed pool video to TVU Grid for sharing with other Hearst stations and other national networks. KMBC also shared live coverage from Phoenix, post-game interviews, and local live fan celebrations throughout the city on Grid.

A TVU MLink from the station’s SUV transmitted live video from the celebratory fireworks display from Kansas City’s Union Station after the Chiefs’ victory.

Schmitz said they appreciated being able to use TVU Partyline as a real-time return video feed for the remote crews in Phoenix to communicate with the control room. “One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced is communication between our local staff and our reporters and photographers out of town—for them to visually interact with the images they’re sending. During the championship game, we sent our photographers in Phoenix a Partyline link and routed our main feed from the control room to their Partyline screen so they could see the images they’re sending as we’re putting them out from Kansas City.”

He added that KMBC uses TVU Partyline for virtual, on-air interviews with one person and multiple interviewees. “It's clean because we can distribute it seamlessly through our TVU infrastructure in the studio, and it always works. It’s much more reliable for us than the mainstream video call software.”

Aside from its reliable transmission, the mobility and accessibility provided by the TVU ecosystem were two of the main attributes Schmitz cited during the remote live production: “Having to run a hardwire cable from a satellite or mobile truck from the watch party in Kansas City’s Power & Light district, with that crowd, would have made the shots we got impossible. TVU gives us that versatility. We had a photographer traveling from one sporting goods store to another, capturing people grabbing championship t-shirts and sweatshirts. We were able to quickly edit the video and get it on air. The efficiency and accessibility of TVU has really elevated what we’re able to do.”

“KMBC’s deployment of its full ecosystem of TVU solutions is at the heart of everything we do,” said Paul Shen, CEO, TVU Networks. “They’re using our technology to provide the most engaging video coverage possible during one of the year’s biggest live events in the city. The reliability of wireless TVU connectivity meant they could broadcast from several locations in Kansas City and Phoenix simultaneously. We’re thrilled we could help them reach their audience in a way that makes every viewer feel part of the action.”

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—In addition to the spring bloom, the new season brought a new set design to Kansas City’s ABC affiliate KMBC 9. Working with Devlin Design Group, KMBC sought a set that would provide a variety of storytelling venues to help visually connect with the community of more than two million people.

The focus of this new design was a series of high-tech monitors to provide visuals to assist with news stories. A 1x9 55-inch array of monitors serves as the backdrop for the main desk. The talent is able to interact with the video displayed on the series of monitors.

Over at the weather center, five 50-inch monitors are used to display the forecast by KMBC’s meteorologists. The weather desk, meanwhile, features a 2x1 80-inch monitor array that show the latest weather stats and a 90-inch monitor serving as an additional presentation option for big weather events and stories.

There is also an interview area that features a 6x1 array of 55-inch monitors and a movable 3x1 kiosk of 55-inch monitor that can display a sweep of nine monitors.

Additional technology deployed on the set includes color changing RGB LED back lit set walls that provide a wave pattern emulating the city’s two rivers. 

The ad opens in a grocery store. The text on the screen says: “If life was like politics.”

The letters in “Politics” are evenly divided—the four to left are blue; the four to the right are red. They’re superimposed over a grocery store drink cooler. The plastic bottles on the left of the fridge are filled with blue liquid; those on the right with red. Dialogue comes up over the whimsical, bouncy music. “We never settle for just two lousy choices in anything—except politics.”

That describes the opening few seconds of a YouTube ad I saw recently for Kansas independent gubernatorial candidate Greg Orman.

Makes sense, I thought. I live in Kansas. YouTube knows to feed me an ad for a political race I should care about.

[Read: Report: Advanced TV Upgrades Pushing Local Ad Sales To $37B By ‘22]

A few more ads popped up while I surfed on YouTube for “Family Guy” clips, “SNL Celebrity Jeopardy” and Pablo Francisco talking about his experience at a techno club in Miami Beach. Then when I least expected it I got an ad that started off with this sentence: “Kevin Yoder went to Washington to work for the people of Kansas, right? Wrong!”

Now I sat straight up in my chair and pondered what just happened. The Kansas City metro area spans both Kanas and Missouri. I am represented by Yoder. On the Missouri side, the Rev. Emanuel Cleaver II represent the Fifth Congressional District, mostly Jackson County; Sam Graves represents Missouri’s Sixth Congressional District—all of northern Missouri, including the northern portion of Kansas City.

What got my attention was that YouTube served me an ad only of interest to people who live in Yoder’s district. I get it. I have an IP address that’s associated with my home address, and YouTube knew what ad to send me.

But what are the implications for TV, a medium that counts political advertising among its biggest revenue generators?

Ten years ago, I would have said they are pretty dire. But today with a new TV standard offering support for layered division multiplexing (LDM), single frequency networks (SFNs) and internet connectivity—which all enable broadcasters to play in the zoned content delivery space—I’d say the biggest implication of my weekend YouTube ad experience is a wake-up call. It should serve as a kick in the pants. It should light a fire. It should motivate local TV broadcasters to deploy Next Gen TV so they too can offer hyperlocal content, including commercials of all sorts, to remain competitive.