Great American Family Selects CTS For Channel Origination, Playout, Transmission

Why It Matters

By outsourcing its core broadcast infrastructure, Great American Family can cut costs and focus on content, while Comcast deepens its foothold in the linear TV services market amid growing competition from streaming platforms.

Key Takeaways

• Comcast secures multi-year deal with Great American Media.
• Media360 will manage Great American Family’s East, West, Faith channels.
• Service covers origination, playout, encryption, and MVPD delivery.
• Partnership highlighted at 2026 NAB Show in Las Vegas.
• Outsourced broadcast tech reduces operational costs for linear networks.

Pulse Analysis

The broadcast landscape is increasingly favoring managed‑service models, and the new CTS‑Great American Media contract exemplifies that shift. Great American Family, a growing family‑oriented network, has struggled with the capital‑intensive demands of running multiple linear feeds across the United States. Partnering with Comcast’s Media360 suite gives the network a turnkey solution that covers channel acquisition, preparation, packaging and delivery, freeing it from the need to maintain its own master‑control facilities. For Comcast, the multi‑year deal adds a high‑profile client to its roster and reinforces its strategy to monetize the Media360 portfolio beyond traditional cable.

Technically, MediaOrigination blends cloud‑based content‑supply‑chain tools with advanced VideoAI automation to handle live and file‑based inputs via satellite, fiber or secure IP. CTS then applies rendering, traffic, metadata and linear rights‑management services before encoding and encrypting each stream for distribution to both traditional MVPDs and virtual MVPD platforms. This end‑to‑end workflow not only improves signal reliability but also simplifies rights compliance and ad insertion across the network’s East, West and Faith channels. The 24/7 operational support promised by CTS is a critical differentiator for broadcasters seeking uninterrupted service.

The agreement arrives at a pivotal moment as linear television battles declining viewership and rising streaming competition. Outsourcing infrastructure allows networks like Great American Family to reallocate capital toward original programming and audience‑growth initiatives, a trend echoed across the industry. Showcasing the partnership at the 2026 NAB Show signals to peers that managed broadcast services are becoming a mainstream solution rather than a niche offering. As more broadcasters adopt similar models, Comcast’s Media360 could become a de‑facto standard for reliable, scalable linear distribution in a hybrid TV ecosystem.