Critical Media Allows OTA Spot Replacement

Critical Media’s Syndicaster unit introduced today a live HD streaming solution for television stations to identify and extract over-the-air commercials in real time, and replace them with geo-targeted digital ads for delivery to Web, mobile devices and connected televisions.

“To date, the live streaming of news programming has been a cost center for broadcasters,” said Sean Morgan, founder and CEO of Critical Mention, which operates Syndicaster. “The new Syndicaster service now opens up an untapped marketplace for broadcasters to offer valuable and targeted rich media advertising opportunities to local merchants and businesses that would not typically advertise on TV.”

The solution, being demonstrated at the NAB Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center (booth SU11707), has completed a pilot implementation and is under deployment at all Newport Television stations. In addition, Critical Media will work with Inergize Digital to integrate live video streaming with commercial insertion on News Synergy, the mobile app that delivers locally branded content to Apple iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Google Android mobile digital devices.

“Extracting OTA commercials and replacing them with digital ads in a live streaming service has been a vexing problem for station owners,” said Morgan. “To date, the live streaming of news programming has been a cost center for broadcasters. The new Syndicaster service now opens up an untapped marketplace for broadcasters to offer valuable and targeted rich media advertising opportunities to local merchants and businesses that would not typically advertise on TV.”

Ion Puspurica, EVP of Critical Media and GM of the company’s Media Services Group, said Syndicaster’s live ad-extraction approach was designed to solve two problems for broadcasters:

• Nielsen does not count live stream impressions, inhibiting stations’ ability to monetize OTA ads within live streams.

• Managing intellectual property rights as they pertain to the display of commercials outside their DMAs and other rights issues.

“Our patent-pending technology identifies the commercial break, dynamically removes the broadcast commercials and replaces them with geo-targeted web video ads,” said Puspurica, adding that the service is available in conjunction with an upgrade of the Syndicaster appliance to high definition.