Sony to Remain ‘Premier’ Gracenote Customer Despite Sale to Tribune Co.
Sony will remain a “premier” customer for Gracenote for the “near term and beyond” despite its selling the music and video database service to Tribune Co., Graham McKenna, Gracenote vice president-marketing, told us. In 2008, Sony acquired Gracenote for $260 million and once viewed the company as central to plans to “enhance and accelerate” its digital content. But Sony agreed last year to sell Gracenote to Tribune for $170 million as part of a restructuring that has since grown to potentially include the spin-offs of its TV and Vaio PC businesses.
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"We have many projects with Sony that started a year ago or are starting now so we will be viewed as premier partner and they will be a great customer for us,” McKenna said. “There is a lot of change going on at Sony. I think it’s a little too early to tell how it all plays out and what the results will be in their product lines. We see it as a opportunity to get in there and help them develop products."
At the same time, Gracenote, which will remain based in Sunnyvale, Calif., with about 250 employees, will gradually graft its metadata, automatic content recognition (ACR), eyeQ interactive program guide (IPG), targeted advertising and other technologies onto Tribune Media Services’ platforms over the next 10-12 months, McKenna said. The two companies will keep separate sales and marketing businesses for the “near term,” but work to avoid overlaps between customers, McKenna said. While Gracenote will give Tribune ties to Roku, Sony and TiVo, its new parent will give it access to cable operators including Time Warner Cable and Virgin Media plus a network of TV broadcast stations that are expected to trial its target advertising platform this spring, McKenna said.
The ability to reach North American cable operators will be key for Gracenote in broadening deployment of the eyeQ IPG, which was launched three years ago as a potential competitor to Rovi’s guide. Gracenote has an agreement with a CE company to use eyeQ in products this spring, potentially expanding the company’s position in North America, said McKenna, declining to identify the new CE partner. The eyeQ is at the heart of Simple TV’s set-top device that captures over-the-air and ClearQAM signals for play back on Android, iOS and Roku products. The eyeQ IPG has been introduced in LG Electronics, Loewe, Philips and Sony TVs in Europe, and Kabel Deutschland has used it in Germany as part of pact stemming from Sony’s former ownership of Munich-based tvtv services. Sony UK acquired tvtv in 2003, moving it under Gracenote before selling it to Arvato’s RTV Media Group subsidiary in January 2013.
"The goal is to evaluate the product platforms and figure out the go forward strategy,” McKenna said. “For now it’s still full steam ahead and I think teaming up with Tribune offers a chance to strengthen our presence in North America."
Gracenote also released its Rhythm platform application program interface (API) to developers last month as a means for creating white label Internet radio stations and channels, Gracenote said. Rhythm offers front-end search and playlist capabilities for a music catalog, but also can link to third parties like Deezer, Rhapsody and Spotify, Gracenote said. Rhythm is designed to allow developers to create genre-based services, including those that could be built into motor vehicles. Gracenote is in “active discussions” with potential partners about deploying Rhythm, the first versions of which could be available in a “few months,” McKenna said. The platform draws on Gracenote’s MusicID data base and is pared with Next Big Sound’s online analytics. “There really are no genre-based music services and we see this as an opportunity for companies to make a name for themselves."
The company also has attracted “several thousand” developers since releasing its audio and video APIs last year, allowing them to tap into Gracenote technology and metadata to create second screen apps. The API includes TV listings and automatic content recognition that allows smartphones and tablets to identify and sync with movies and TV programs. Gracenote first released its audio APIs in February 2013 and followed them with video in June, McKenna said. So far much of the interest among developers remains in audio, McKenna said. “Video is still in the early stage with some TVs just starting to open APIs,” he said.
With Gracenote’s targeted advertising tests expected to begin in a few markets in the spring, the company has pulled back from an earlier agreement to work with mDialog in tailoring broadcast TV commercials to viewers, McKenna said. The pact was to use mDialog’s smart stream platform to insert targeted ads in cable and satellite programming. “We still have a relationship with them, but right now we are focused on getting the ad trials going and then presenting back what we have learned,” McKenna said.