Avid has announced a major tech deal with the Sinclair Broadcast Group that will see the station group standardizing on Avid’s MediaCentral Platform as part of a larger effort by the station group to transform the way it creates and distributes news content at its 64 local news producing stations.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Avid is describing it as a “record setting contract.”
The agreement is notable because station groups have been looking to deploy larger software platforms such as the MediaCentral offering to help them rapidly change the way they create news and to make their operations much more flexible so they can respond quickly to market changes with new services and content.
As part of the 10-year agreement, Avid will deliver advanced end-to-end newsroom production and content management solutions and replace technology from other vendors.
“Moving to a common production platform across all of our news markets provides us the platform to create a content sharing news community across Sinclair increasing efficiency and productivity,” said Scott Livingston, VP of news at the Sinclair Broadcast Group. “Having defined and more frequent technology upgrade cycles will enable us to keep our newsrooms current across the enterprise and allow us to respond to rapid changes like new digital distribution models in a more cost effective way.”
The companies noted that “Sinclair expects to realize meaningful economic benefits” through improved efficiency and via greater flexibility to respond to industry changes.
