W.Va. Stations Add Harris For Traffic, Billing

Harris Corp. has signed a deal to provide West Virginia Media Holdings with integrated traffic and billing and advertising sales software for the station group.

With Harris OSi-Traffic and OSi-AdConnections already operational on WOWK Charleston-Huntington, W.Va. (DMA 65), Harris expects to complete the transition to its software on West Virginia Media Holdings’ other stations and subchannels by year-end.

In addition to WOWK, a CBS affiliate, the group also includes; WVNS, the CBS affiliate in Beckley-Bluefield (DMA 156); WTRF (CBS) Wheeling-Steubenville (DMA 158); and WBOY (NBC) Clarksburg-Morgantown (DMA 170).

Charlie Dusic, chief financial officer for West Virginia Media Holdings, said that the single-platform Harris media software solution is an ideal match for their operation, noting that all the stations interconnect and often work together.

“We have many clients that advertise across multiple markets, so we do a lot of cross-market selling and reporting,” said Dusic in a statement.  “The Harris solution had the unanimous support of our sales and traffic managers, as they found that the OSi interface was ideal for cross-market interaction.  Its all-encompassing nature also integrates smoothly into our daily business operation.”

Dusic expects that the integrated OSi solution will make it easier for West Virginia Media Holdings to “incorporate new or non-traditional revenues” beyond traditional broadcast TV, and develop a “one-bill-for-all-services” approach for the company’s advertisers.

“The overall goal is to become more efficient across our operation by reducing manual processes and making the business side more straightforward for our clients,” added Dusic.  “The Harris solution provides a set of tools from presentation through ordering and final billing that our stations did not have before.”

The long-term contract — a Harris spokesman said details are confidential — underscores the trend by stations and particularly station groups to streamline traffic and billing operations and link them with advertising sales.

“It really is the automation of that business process of allowing the sales organization to talk seamlessly with the traffic organization,” Joe Lampert, Harris’ managing director for its North American Advertising Solutions Group, said of the OSi-Traffic/OSi-AdConnections package.

“We have seen this type of tool set deployed heavily in financial markets,” said “We feel it’s time for media companies and their advertising supply chain to reap the benefit of these tools as well.”