ChyronHego Acquires Newsroom Solutions

ChyronHego has purchased Newsroom Solutions, the Charlotte, N.C., provider of data-driven news ticker graphics operating on 500 U.S. TV stations and in 74 of the 75 largest U.S. markets.

Announcing the move at a Thursday morning press conference at IBC, ChyronHego also unveiled updates to several of its core solutions and signed an agreement, in front of reporters, to launch a live remote production system with a leading provider of broadcast facilities and services in Europe.

ChyronHego’s acquisition of Newsroom Solutions demonstrates the company’s determination to drive the TV industry’s evolution to software-driven content creation, said Jesper Gawell, chief marketing officer. “We want to be the end-to-end solution for content creation on live video.”

The move also underscores ChyronHego’s aim “to build the industry’s most complete software suite for live news productions,” said company CEO Johan Apel, in a news release.

“With its comprehensive family of solutions and solid expertise in presenting data graphically from a range of data sources, Newsroom Solutions provides the ideal complement to our product family. The acquisition gives us a new center of competency that we plan on leveraging not just for broadcasting customers, but also in other markets that rely on compelling graphical presentations of real-time data,” Apel added.

ChyronHego plans to integrate Newsroom Solutions’ real-time data presentation technologies with its ChannelBox channel branding product to provide additional targeted options to the market, the company said.

For Newsroom Solutions, the combination presents an opportunity to expand its offerings to overseas markets said Rick Summers, the company’s VP of sales and marketing, in the news release. “Plus, it’s a significant advantage for our customers, who will now be able to access ChyronHego’s rich array of graphics creation and playout solutions while continuing to receive the same outstanding service for which our company is well-known.”

The Newsroom Solutions deal comes just weeks after ChyronHego acquired Vidigo, an Amsterdam-based provider of IT-based software solutions for live TV production workflows. At its IBC press conference, Apel made it clear the company would continue using acquisitions, as well as product enhancements, to secure its place as a key player in the TV industry’s transition to IP.

The company has been busy rewriting the software foundations of its Lyric, Channelbox and Camio platforms, Apel said. One of the results is that all are resolution agnostic, making them compatible with 4K as well as more traditional formats.

Headlining the product updates unveiled at IBC is Lyric64, a true 64-bit version of the company’s graphics solution that sports a new user interface including point and click access to data using ChyronHego’s Advanced Data Object technology.

Studio MediaMaker, a new solution for streamlining broadcast production for smaller and non-traditional organizations, provides complete automation for the end-to-end process of broadcasting without requiring control rooms or technicians. It is designed to be easy for presenters to use.

“You can run this from your iPhone if you want to,” Apel said, noting that Studio MediaMaker is on the short list for a design innovation award from the International Association of Broadcast Manufacturers here at IBC.

ChyronHego has also added transponder integration to its sports tracking software, allowing it to track and graphically display, in real time, the leaders in a horse race, for example.

The company is partnering with Kanal 75, a leading Swedish sports producer, to roll out this technology.

Another indication of ChyronHego’s commitment to live TV came when its new subsidiary, Vidigo, inked a deal, during its IBC press conference, to provide remote production services to Euro Media Group.

Euro Media, which provides remote production services in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the U.K., Switzerland and Italy, will use VidiGo’s new VidiGo Live solution in four live production galleries.

“Euro Media has been evaluating remote production solutions for two years and came to the conclusion that VidiGo Live is the most advanced,” said Ronald Meyvisch, chief technology officer at EMG. “This is a very pragmatic solution and one that we can set up easily and start doing remote production today using normal bandwidth.”

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