NATPE 2010: Program Partners, Knowlera Media Forge Alliance

Companies focusing on content for news features, local and sales initiatives

By David Tanklefsky -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/26/2010 12:17:37 PM

NATPE 2010: Complete Coverage From B&C

Program Partners and Knowlera Media, one of the largest suppliers of "how-to" video content, have entered into an alliance that will develop video content for broadcasters, Program Partners announced Monday (Jan. 25).

The companies are focusing on solutions for stations that provide video content for news features, local programming and sales initiatives without increasing affiliate's production costs. Knowlera's programming has already been used in a pilot program at NBC-owned WRC Washington, DC. The company will provide its desktop toolkit, which is optimized for immediate play on multiple platforms including broadcast, online and mobile.

"We have always recognized that serving our stations in the 21st century would require looking beyond episodic series to find exciting new forms of syndicated programming," said Program Partners' Rich Colbert. "We believe Knowlera can offer new capabilities that stations previously could only dream of."

Knowlera boasts a production network of more than 5000 professional filmmakers and a library of more than 10,000 short-form instructional videos. Their technology allows for automated video editing, multi-format encoding and accelerated file transfer.

The company produced a series of DTV transition "how-to" videos for B&C in 2008.

Knowlera programming will be distributed by Program Partners' new affiliated company, PPI Releasing, LLC.