Agreement Underscores Growing Importance of ACR in Fast-Emerging iTV Environment
CASTLE ROCK, CO, and LOS GATOS, CA, March X, 2012 — Accelerated Media, the leading provider of advanced interactive TV (iTV) platforms and related services, and Audible Magic, the leader in automated content recognition (ACR) solutions and services, today announced that Accelerated Media has integrated Audible Magic’s ACR solutions into its iTV technology and will offer Audible Magic’s ACR services along with its own. This agreement, the latest in a flurry of technology partnerships Audible Magic has announced in recent months, is further evidence of both the quickening pace of development in the emerging iTV and interactive advertising markets and the pivotal role ACR technology is playing in this evolution.
Driven by recent developments such as the convergence of TV and the Internet; the rise of new “smart” TVs, phones, and tablets; growing consumer demands for new “social” capabilities and other features; and new revenue opportunities for advertisers, the traditional “lean back” passive TV experience is evolving into a far more interactive and dynamic one. Instead of merely watching TV, viewers are engaging more fully with content, learning more about it, sharing their thoughts about it with friends, taking advantage of special consumer offers, and much more.
In turn, these changes have led to the need for new technologies to support applications that will make the interactive experience more intriguing and useful for viewers and more profitable for content providers, advertisers, and others. Among these, one of critical importance is ACR, which enables the hardware to identify the specific content being shown in real time.
“We’re acutely aware of the place of content recognition in the interactive TV experience,” said Doug McGary, founder and CTO of Accelerated Media. “It’s a key enabling technology, a capability many iTV applications need in order to really be solutions. Considering the essential role of ACR, we looked closely at the different options on the market. Eventually, the choice became abundantly clear. Audible Magic’s digital fingerprinting approach is much more robust, accurate, and reliable than other approaches. In addition, Audible Magic supports its solutions with an excellent array of solutions and customer service. We realized that no one else could give us this level of ACR experience, expertise, and value.”
“Accelerated Media is a very exciting company to be working with,” added Jay Friedman, VP of Marketing for Audible Magic. “Its people are right on the front lines in what we consider a revolution in consumer electronics – this profound shift from the mostly passive to the highly interactive, and highly engaged, viewer experience. And its platforms for iTV, advanced advertising, and business intelligence offer tremendous revenue benefits to advertisers, programmers, and others with a stake in this market. We look forward to helping Accelerated Media integrate ACR into its various platforms and capitalize on the many opportunities that lie ahead.”
About Accelerated Media
Accelerated Media develops and executes advanced TV interactive experiences for global consumer products companies and content programmers. The company aggregates campaigns across all interactive platforms, including cable, satellite, telco, as well as over the top TV devices and mobile/tablets, enabling clients to interact with their customers and viewers in revolutionary and accountable ways. Their expertise has resulted in unprecedented television ad ROI for multiple Fortune 500 advertisers and accounts for some of the first, and most sophisticated, interactive TV campaigns in the U.S. The technology leader in the industry, the company builds and deploys mobile and TV apps, as well as ad platforms and set top box technology for major chip manufacturers and cable MSOs.
About Audible Magic
Audible Magic Corporation is the trusted leader in digital fingerprinting for recognizing content in all forms across radio and television broadcasts, Internet streams, cable and satellite transmissions, stored digital files, and on consumer devices such as smart TVs, set-top boxes, smart phones, tablets, and other appliances. The company maintains an extensive portfolio of patents in digital fingerprinting, content recognition and related technologies. Currently, Audible Magic works with more than 200 customers and partners.