DALLAS, March 12, 2015 —Imagine Communications, a market leader in video infrastructure, advertising and workflow management solutions serving the media networks, broadcast stations, on-line and communication service providers and enterprise markets, today announced that Neuhoff Media, a leading multi-station TV provider in Twin Falls, Idaho, has successfully implemented the Imagine Communications LandmarkOSI Cloud™ traffic and billing system hosted on Microsoft Azure. The system went live in mid-December 2014, marking one of the first, if not the first, fully cloud-based traffic and billing solution deployed in North America.
“The rapid evolution of our business and changes in the way we target customers require mobile-enabled capabilities that efficiently empower our workforce to monetize inventory and control costs,” said Chris Pruitt, vice president and general manager, for Neuhoff Media. “After four years as a LandmarkOSI user, we have developed a strong partnership with Imagine Communications. They are enabling us to more quickly scale to handle new content and deliver cross-platform services with the latest virtualized, IP technologies. LandmarkOSI Cloud transforms our sales team and traffic managers’ productivity when working remotely, and frees them from traditional tasks related to system management.”
Owned by Neuhoff Communications, Neuhoff Media runs three TV stations dedicated to improving the communities it serves. LandmarkOSI Cloud is used to schedule programming and manage commercial inventory for more than 25 hours per week of local and HD newscasts, as well as programming such as CBS Thursday Night Football, NFL on FOX, How I Met Your Mother, Jeopardy!, and NCIS. A LandmarkOSI user since 2010, Neuhoff Media also utilizes LandmarkOSI Sales, a web-based research and proposal tool offering immediate, real-time access to avails, packages, pending and report failures.
“Neuhoff Media is an ambassador for embracing the cloud and software-based technologies that provide immediate operational efficiencies while maintaining outstanding service to viewers,” said Sarah Foss, vice president, Product Management Advertising Management Systems for Imagine Communications. “Built to easily launch and manage multi-station/multi-channel environments, LandmarkOSI Cloud offers advanced functionality and tools for traffic, accounting and yield management in a more secure, flexible cloud-based environment. This deployment marks a major industry and cloud-enabled milestone as we look to drive today’s broadcasters into tomorrow’s broadcast environments defined by software, IP and the cloud.”
“By using the inherent scalability of Microsoft Azure, LandmarkOSI Cloud provides customers with access to significant cost-savings and flexible deployment models, empowering them to quickly adapt to new business models and delivery platforms,” said Tony Emerson, Managing Director - Media & Cable, at Microsoft Corp. “This cloud-based solution enables Neuhoff Media to focus on what it does best, while giving it the flexibility to leverage a more secure, centralized information hub for content management, sales, traffic and scheduling that optimizes inventory utilization and sales resources. We see this as one of the first of many applications that Imagine Communications’ will deliver to customers on Azure.”
This news comes on the heels of the announced public preview of Microsoft’s Azure Media Encoder Premium. A collaboration between Imagine Communications and Microsoft, this new cloud offering for on-demand workflows provides exceptional agility and scalability for global multiscreen deployments – enabling media companies to stream broadcast-quality content to virtually any device, anywhere in the world.
For more information on LandmarkOSI Cloud, visit http://www.imaginecommunications.com/products/media-business-systems/traffic/traffic-for-stations-and-station-groups/landmarkosi-cloud.aspx.
About Neuhoff Communications
Neuhoff Communications, Inc. operates 16 radio and television stations, along with 13 local websites across central Illinois and southern Idaho. For more information, visit http://www.neuhoffmedia.com/.
About Imagine Communications
Imagine Communications Corp., is a global leader of video infrastructure and workflow management solutions serving the media networks, broadcast stations, on-line and communication service providers, and enterprise markets spanning 185 countries. Today, nearly half of the world’s video channels traverse through more than 3 million Imagine Communications products deployed around the world. Imagine Communication provides the most complete end-to-end video solutions and is innovating to deliver the most advanced IP, cloud-enabled, software-defined network and workflow solutions in the world. Visit www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.
