SeaChange Buying Timeline Labs For $22M+

SeaChange International, a global multiscreen video software innovator, on Monday has entered into a binding agreement to acquire Timeline Labs.

Timeline Labs is a privately-owned, California-based SaaS company that enables local broadcasters, local and national news organizations, cable news channels and other media companies and brands to analyze social media messages in real time; find and broadcast newsworthy social trends and insights; and measure viewing audience engagement across television, mobile and PC.

Timeline’s customers include Fox Television Stations, Sinclair, Media General and Tribune broadcast television stations, as well as online providers like 120Sports.com.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, SeaChange will pay $14 million in cash, $8 million in shares of SeaChange stock, and up to an additional $2.5 million in deferred performance-based consideration payable in shares of SeaChange stock.

This payment will be based on financial targets for Timeline Labs over a two-year period with payment upon achievement of these metrics occurring annually.

For fiscal 2016, the transaction is anticipated to be neutral to SeaChange’s non-GAAP earnings per share, the company said.

The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close on Feb. 2, 2015. All Timeline Labs employees, including the CEO and senior leadership team, will join SeaChange as part of the transaction. In addition, SeaChange has agreed to name one person designated by Timeline Labs’ equityholders to the SeaChange board of directors, effective as of closing of the transaction. 

Timeline Labs provides a content management platform that lets its customers discover, curate and display geographically targeted news stories that are trending across social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) with visualizations that are ready for air on television and over-the-top. Timeline’s major investors include former executives of television networks ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Guggenheim Digital Media. 

SeaChange CEO Jay Samit said: “Timeline Labs’ success demonstrates that social media can be captured for the advantage of the television industry, bringing concrete, new value by truly reflecting and serving the current mindset of their specific audiences. While the broadcast segment represents an accretive growth opportunity for SeaChange, the Timeline Labs platform will allow us to extend the social news paradigm to multiscreen television service providers, so they can easily launch ready-made and differentiated live or on-demand content packages tailored to the interests of their subscribers.”

Through their shared focus on innovating to enhance television service providers’ effectiveness, SeaChange and Timeline Labs began collaborating to enable the NewCoin local TV audience measurement venture announced last week with Fox Television Stations, Tribune Media and Univision. NewCoin’s mission is to harness the data-gathering power of currently available and emerging technologies in order to create a broader based measurement tool that will accurately measure audiences across the entire spectrum of linear and digital platforms.

SeaChange will meet with television service providers and content owners during the 2015 NATPE Conference in Miami, Jan. 20-22) and the National Cable Television Cooperative’s Winter Education Conference (San Antonio, Jan. 26-27).