NAB: ChyronHego to Acquire Two Companies

Consolidation in the broadcast tech business continued at NAB with ChyronHego announcing plans to acquire two Norwegian companies by acquiring all of the weather graphics firm WeatherOne and taking a majority stake in ZXY Sport Tracking, which provides sports tracking transponder technology.

Terms of the two separate deals were not disclosed. The acquisitions are expected to be completed in a month or two but both companies will be exhibiting products at the ChyronHego booth this week at NAB.

ChyronHego is a major player in the graphics market but until the deal for WeatherOne did not have a weather graphics product, explained Johan Apel, president and chief executive officer at ChyronHego during the company’s press conference at NAB.

The deal will give ChyronHego access to WeatherOne’s Metacast live-to-air weather graphics and broadcast production system. “This acquisition will open a new market segment for us while bridging a general gap in news production workflow,” Apel explained.

ChyronHego is also a major player in providing sports and player tracking graphics.

The deal to acquire a majority stake in ZXY Sport Tracking AS will expand those offerings by providing it with a transponder based system that will complement ChyronHego’s optical based sensor systems.

 “ZXY Sport Tracking offers powerful sports analysis technology that will further strengthen our products in this space,” said Apel. “In addition to enhancing our TRACAB product portfolio, ZXY’s technology will extend our sports analysis offerings across both the sports broadcast and professional sports markets.