Belo Corp. has awarded IBM a comprehensive, five-and-a-half year outsourcing services contract to manage Belo’s information-technology infrastructure. IBM will assume operational support oFf the information-technology functions that support Belo’s market-leading television stations, newspapers, interactive media and cable-news operations across the nation.

Dennis Williamson, EVP and CFO, Belo said, “Out-tasking Belo’s technology infrastructure is a transformational initiative that will allow us to leverage IBM’s expertise to operate more efficiently, compete more effectively and grow our businesses. This strategic decision accelerates our ability to provide local content to Belo audiences across an expanding array of distribution channels, which include our traditional print and broadcast operations as well as online and other emerging media.”

Significant enterprise-wide technology and business benefits that are planned include improving overall systems efficiency by centralizing and standardizing technology platforms, upgrading data-transmission capacity to support major business objectives through network expansion and development, increasing business-technology continuity controls and reducing risk through data center upgrades and consolidation.