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Avid Inks Multi-million Dollar Deal with Fox to Convert Six Stations to Digital Newsrooms
Top US broadcaster to transition news creation, storage, and play-to-air processes with all-digital Avid production environments
Avid Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that Fox Television Stations, Inc. has chosen to convert six of its 27 news-generating stations from analog-based systems to Avid® end-to-end digital production environments for ingest, editing, storage, and playout. The six Fox TV Stations to make the transition are: WNYW, New York City; WTXF, Philadelphia; WFXT, Boston; WTTG, Washington DC; WTVT, Tampa; and WITI, Milwaukee. Installation has begun at all six stations and is expected to be completed by the end of 2005. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"The transition from tape to digital production requires a substantial overhaul of infrastructure and workflow," said Earl Arbuckle, VP of Engineering for Fox Television Stations, Inc. "We expect these new systems to integrate smoothly with our existing Avid editing and iNEWS® solutions in order to maintain our local-market news leadership."
David Schleifer, vice president of Avid Broadcast and Workgroups, said, "As a leading broadcaster in the US, Fox clearly understands the benefits of going digital. With our solutions in place in these well-respected top-rated markets, Fox will have the most advanced, cutting-edge and sophisticated technology for digital news production on the market. We are thrilled to help bring them to the front line of digital broadcasting."
This deal follows the move by WOFL - a Fox Television Stations property in Orlando - which installed an all-digital production environment using Avid broadcast solutions in May of this year. The additional six Fox stations will mirror WOFL's facility, which includes an Avid Unity for News shared-storage media network with 8.64 terabytes of storage and TransferManager and Media Manager software; Avid NewsCutter® Adrenaline systems and NewsCutter XP systems for craft news and field editing; AirSpeed systems for ingest and playout of digital content; and Avid Media Composer® Adrenaline systems for editing and finishing promotions.
About Fox Television Stations, Inc.
The Fox Television Station group, one of the nation's largest owned-and-operated network broadcast groups, comprises 35 stations in 26 markets, covering nearly 45% of U.S. television homes. This includes five duopolies in the top 10 markets, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Washington D.C., as well as duopolies in Houston, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Orlando.
About Avid Technology, Inc.
Avid Technology, Inc. is the world leader in digital nonlinear media creation, management and distribution solutions, enabling film, video, audio, animation, games, and broadcast news professionals to work more efficiently, productively, and creatively. For more information about the company's Oscar®, Grammy®, and Emmy® award-winning products and services, please visit: www.avid.com.
© 2005 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product specifications and availability are subject to change without notice. Avid, Pro Tools, iNEWS, Film Composer, Avid Unity, Adrenaline, Media Composer, AirSpeed, and NewsCutter are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Avid received an Oscar statuette representing the 1998 Scientific and Technical Award for the concept, design and engineering of the Avid Film Composer® system for motion picture editing. Digidesign, Avid's audio division, received an Oscar statuette representing the 2003 Scientific and Technical Award for the design, development, and implementation of its Pro Tools® digital audio workstation. Oscar is a trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Emmy is a registered trademark of ATAS/NATAS. Grammy is a trademark of The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
CONTACT: Avid Technology, Inc.
Press:
Amy Paladino, 978-640-3051
amy_paladino@avid.com
or
Investors:
Dean Ridlon, 978-640-5309
dean_ridlon@avid.com
SOURCE: Avid Technology, Inc.