Hearst Television announced that they are going to launch an in house Media Production Group and the head of the Hearst Television group is going to run it.

The company says that Frank Biancuzzo will head up the new venture which will produce original programming for distribution to television stations, broadcast and cable networks and streaming services.

“This is a pivotal time in our industry with a strong demand for original programming across all platforms,” Biancuzzo said. “We look forward to building on our past successes, while developing new and distinctive programming from a creative, strategic and business partnership standpoint.”

With the way TV viewing habits are changing, launching your own production company seems like the right move. But, does Hearst have the deep pockets to compete with the big companies out there?

I would like to see other groups follow this, but all of the content they produce would only be available to the stations they own.

Also, to take this a step further, I believe that all stations should have a local programing department that could produce shows that would run outside of newscasts.

Viewing habits are changing in this streaming world and stations need to offer up more than just local newscasts. Local programing is the future of stations that want to survive.

Hearst is making a step in the right direction, but I’m not sure they are focusing this enough on their local TV stations.