Thomson Renames Grass Valley's Transmission, Headend Divisions

Units will operate as standalone entities under Thomson brand

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/7/2010 4:24:00 PM

Technicolor, as part of divesting its Grass Valley broadcast equipment division, on Monday announced it will rename Grass Valley's transmission and headend divisions, which will now operate as two standalone entities under the Thomson brand.

Technicolor is renaming the two units Thomson Broadcast, which provides services, technologies and products for terrestrial TV, radio and scientific transmission applications; and Thomson Video Networks, which sells video compression and content-processing solutions for digital headends for network operators and broadcasters.

In July, private equity firm Francisco Partners made a binding offer to Technicolor to acquire the Grass Valley Broadcast & Professional business, which includes cameras, editing, master control, news production, production automation and related product lines.

Paris-based Thomson SA adopted Technicolor as its corporate name after shareholders approved the company's debt-restructuring plan in January 2010.

In March, Technicolor laid off 25% of Grass Valley's work force, or about 625 employees.

Technicolor last year determined that Grass Valley was a "non-core" business and that it would focus on " services for content creators and distributors" through its film-processing and network origination services.