Ericsson agreed to acquire FYI Television, which provides entertainment metadata and rich media content to broadcasters. Financial terms were not disclosed.
FYI Television, which is based in Grand Prairie, Texas, accumulates and distributes TV entertainment content and linear scheduling data from over 9,000 TV networks daily, aggregating the information into customized formats for various digital, media, content, analytics and print clients for use on their connected devices such as tablets, phones, desktops, internet portals and gaming consoles. FYI’s databases contains more than 2.8 million cast and crew related entities, 1.5 million images directly relating to specific program titles, celebrities and stations, including logos, seasonal key art, movie posters and iconic stills.
FYI Television’s employees will join Business Line Broadcast & Media Services, part of Ericsson’s Business Unit Global Services, with the acquisition expected to close in Q1 2016.
“As the TV industry evolves and viewing behavior changes, we believe that high-quality, rich metadata will be a key component for a personalized TV experience. Combined with our capabilities in TV platforms and content discovery, we will be able to help our customers to improve the video experience and identify new revenue opportunities. FYI Television’s expertise and customer base in the US is a great complementary fit for Ericsson and will be an integral part of our growth strategy. It will strengthen our position as one of the leading providers of media services in the world,” stated Magnus Mandersson, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Unit Global Services at Ericsson.
Ericsson noted that it is already the largest provider of content discovery services in Europe, delivering metadata, images, search and recommendations on more than 3,000 TV channels in over 30 languages. Every year, Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services distributes more than 2.7 million hours of programming in more than 90 languages for more than 500 TV channels worldwide. In addition, we provide more than 200,000 hours of captioning each year – 80,000 hours of which is live.
- Ericsson recently established a US broadcast and media services hub based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company currently provides closed captioning services to broadcasters around the world from this hub, with plans to roll out video description services over the coming months.
