Brookhaven-based Gray Television signs deal with NBCUniversal

Brookhaven-based Gray Television has inked a long-term lease agreement with NBCUniversal.

The deal sets the stage for the media giant to operate Gray Television’s new Assembly Studios project in Doraville, which is expected to employ several thousand people.

It’s a big win for Georgia’s booming film and television industry, which brought in a whopping $4 billion to its economy last year. NBCUniversal’s portfolio includes the NBC broadcast network, Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation, Focus Features, Peacock streaming service, and a host of television networks such as Telemundo and Bravo.

Gray Television, which owns local TV stations across the country including Atlanta’s CBS46 News, announced the deal on Wednesday.

“Gray Television is thrilled to expand our already strong relationship with NBCU,” Gray’s Executive Chairman and CEO Hilton H. Howell Jr. said in a press release. “The new venture announced today places Gray’s own studio projects inside a large, first-class television and film production facility that will draw upon and will surely increase the large pool of skilled industry professionals who also make their homes here in the Atlanta metroplex.”

Assembly Studios is a 43-acre production complex that’s under construction as part of a broader 135-acre mixed-use development called Assembly Atlanta. That project is redeveloping the former General Motors Assembly Plant in Doraville, turning the site into a new town center with office buildings, a hotel, conference center, entertainment venues, apartments and townhomes.