Issue link: http://osercommunicationsgroup.uberflip.com/i/668749
B r o a d c a s t e r s S h o w D a i l y 1 7 T u e s d a y , A p r i l 1 9 , 2 0 1 6 VERTICAL BRIDGE ACQUIRES PORTFOLIO OF BROADCAST TOWERS FROM ALPHA MEDIA Vertical Bridge, the largest private owner and manager of wireless communication infrastructure in the U.S., announced that it has completed the acquisition of nearly 200 radio broadcast towers in a two part transaction with Alpha Media. The port- folio of assets acquired includes 64 sites from Alpha Media's existing portfolio and 49 sites which Alpha Media recently acquired as part of its purchase of radio stations from Digity, LLC. Financial terms of the transaction were not dis- closed. With this acquisition, Vertical Bridge now has a total portfolio of over 42,000 towers, rooftop locations, bill- boards, utility infrastructure and other site locations that it owns, operates or manages. The company's geographic presence in key markets across the U.S. has also expanded significantly. "We are thrilled to partner with Larry Wilson and Alpha Media, which owns and operates an admirable portfolio of assets in prime locations across top markets," said Alex Gellman, Chief Executive Officer of Vertical Bridge. "It would be challenging to site these towers today, and we feel fortunate to expand our portfolio into these areas and further strengthen Vertical Bridge's offering to our partners. Since these towers have not yet been marketed to wireless carriers, they offer attractive new collocation opportunities. Our broadcast partners will also benefit from the height of these towers as they will provide good reloca- tion options relative to the 600MHz auc- tion repacking process." Alpha Media Chairman, Larry Wilson commented on the announce- ment, "We could not have done this with- out the hard work and determination from the great team at Vertical Bridge. We're proud to call them a partner of the Alpha Media family." About Vertical Bridge Vertical Bridge is the largest private owner and manager of wireless commu- nication infrastructure in the United States. The company owns, operates and manages over 42,000 tower, rooftop, bill- board, utility attachment and other site locations in support of all wireless net- work deployments. Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Vertical Bridge was founded in 2014 by key executives from Digital Bridge Holdings, LLC and former senior officers of Global Tower Partners. The senior management team at Vertical Bridge has over 150 years of collective experience in tower infrastructure and related sectors. About Alpha Media Alpha Media is a radio broadcast media company that is the third largest broad- cast tower company in the U.S. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon and formed by veteran radio executive, Larry Wilson, in 2009, Alpha Media owns and operates over 250 radio stations within 53 markets across the United States cov- ering all formats including Top 40, Adult Contemporary, Spanish, Urban, News Talk, Sports, Rock, Country and more. In addition to these radio stations, Alpha Media owns the intimate performance venues, Skype Live Studio in Portland, Oregon and Alamo Lounge in San Antonio, Texas. For more information, visit www.alphamediausa.com or www. verticalbridge.com. INTRODUCING EVER: THE NEW WAY TO DISCOVER & PURCHASE EVERYTHING INSIDE VIDEOS Ever satisfies the natural human curiosi- ty we feel about people, places and prod- ucts while watching video. Ever gives customers the control to discover and purchase anything they see in the video. Ever disrupts today's information-push- based advertising model, while provid- ing content creators with a powerful new way to monetize video content. Ever is a new multi-platform service that makes everything inside videos dis- coverable and purchasable. When watch- ing a video with Ever, consumers can instantly discover people, places and purchase products inside videos – with- out interrupting the entertainment expe- rience. "Ever has solved the video discov- ery problem that has existed in the indus- try for the past two decades," said Ever Chief Executive Officer Chander Chawla. "Scores of attempts have been made by startups and big companies to make videos discoverable and pur- chasable. All of them have failed because either they were interrupting the entertainment experience or pushing consumers to ad content. Ever works in real-time – empowering the viewer to simply press a button to discover people, places, fashion or other items in any frame of video – without interruption." Ever's New Products Ever App makes everything inside videos discoverable and instantly pur- chasable. When people wonder about something they see on TV, they can simply tap the Ever App on their phone and the exact frame/image they see on TV shows up on their phone with infor- mation about items (people, place, fashion, interior design, makeup, etc.) and they can instantly purchase them right from their phone. Ever Extension offers a single screen experience on Chrome, Safari and Firefox web browsers (laptops and tablets). When watching a video on YouTube or any other streaming web- site, the items of interest automatically show up when you hover the mouse over the video. Ever API makes discovery and commerce possible for watching videos via smartphone apps. When watching a video on a smartphone app, users touch the screen and the items of interest auto- matically show up. Furthermore, with the Ever API, content creators can tag items to make people, places, fashion and objects discoverable within their videos. "Consumers are tired of being inun- dated with advertising and yet they're naturally curious about the people, places, fashion and other items they see in the videos," said Chawla. "With Ever, consumers finally have a way to discov- er what they're interested in while watching TV or videos online without compromising their entertainment expe- rience or tolerating advertising." Today there are two ways for con- tent creators to make money: consumers pay for content or they tolerate advertis- ing. Ever creates a third way for content creators to monetize their videos – put- ting consumers in control of what infor- mation they pull, while providing deep- er engagement with content. Availability The Ever app is available now for down- load on iOS and Android. The Ever Extension is available for Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers at everapp.co/extension. Content creators can learn more about the Ever API at everapp.co/api. All three Ever products are offered at no charge for consumers and content creators. Ever works across all video plat- forms (TV, tablet/PCs and smart- phones). Recently launched, consumers can use Ever App with the FNTV Lifestyle channel on their Roku stream- ing player and they can use Ever Extension with Michelle Phan videos on YouTube. Learn more at everapp.co. STARFISH TECHNOLOGIES SUPPLIES TRANSPORT STREAM SPLICER TO SKY TV Starfish Technologies, a company pio- neering innovative technologies and systems in the field of regional televi- sion and ad insertion for broadcasters, has announced the sale of its TS Splicer product to Sky, the UK's largest pay-TV provider. Sky is moving around 20 of its premium UK OTT channels spread over two sites to a more componen- tized platform and needed to block or replace some content with holding slates or alternative media. Starfish was chosen to supply TS Splicer in a fully redundant 1+1 configuration, complete with a secure Starfish remote web-based monitoring and control sys- tem. Sky Programme Manager Guy Hall, who is responsible for delivering this new strategic platform, said, "We evaluated a number of commercially available splicing products and the Starfish TS Splicer best met our requirements. The ability to perform high-density transport stream-based splicing in the IP domain allows Sky to significantly increase the density of the solution and achieve better scala- bility within our complex and expand- ing OTT head-end." Starfish Marketing Director Peter Blatchford added, "We are delighted to have been chosen to supply a critical part of Sky's new OTT infrastructure. Our TS Splicer product is designed for users looking for a high performance splicer that has a flexible configura- tion, which allows it to be tailored to specific applications." About Starfish Technologies Founded more than 10 years ago, Starfish Technologies has an excellent reputation for meeting international broadcasters' expectations with inno- vative products and systems. Starfish solutions are proven in service and have been implemented by an impres- sive list of international customers. Starfish has developed a wide range of in-house expertise in tech- nologies, including video encoding and transcoding, multi-platform deliv- ery, splicing SDI, transport stream splicing, transport stream processing, IP delivery of media streams, opt-out encoding/decoding, audio description, compliance recording and subtitling. With this broad software expertise and systems design experience, Starfish is ideally suited to build and operate automated systems for media suppliers across a wide range of applications. About Sky Sky is Europe's leading entertainment company. The group serves 20 million customers across five countries: Italy, Germany, Austria, the UK and Ireland. It offers the best and broadest range of content, delivers market-leading cus- tomer service and uses innovative new technology to give customers a better TV experience, whenever and wherev- er they choose. The company employs 31,000 people and is listed on the London Stock Exchange (SKY).