Hego, never.no Partner to Bring Social TV, Second Screen Interactivity to Live TV

Hego and never.no announced a partnership to pursue joint innovations which strengthen their combined solutions in real-time social interactivity on TV.

Hego brings extensive expertise and innovative technologies for delivering leading graphics solutions for live TV, while never.no are recognised in the industry as pioneers and leaders with their powerful software platform that enables truly social TV.

The unique strengths of the two companies operating together will allow broadcasters to push, pull and extract user-generated data and social feeds from second-screens onto the first screen with Hego’s strong real-time graphical capabilities. For decades, Hego has been providing the broadcast and sports industry with powerful tools for information management and production of live television.

The joint collaboration between Hego and never.no has most recently been seen in one of the very first projects which integrated social media into broadcast in Finland during the IIHF Hockey Championships on MTV3. The broadcast included social media comments from facebook, twitter, sms, and the second screen application presented on-air through the Hego GS2 graphics system. The success of this project highlighted the real impact of interactivity, and has since been replicated to several other shows in Finland such as Big Brother Suomi and the Municipal Elections coverage. Hego and never.no have also worked together on Nelonen Media´s “So You Think You Can Dance” clap-meter. This gave the audience the opportunity to clap for their favourite contender and was extremely well received by audiences. For the broadcast industry these kinds of interactive capabilities open up many new possibilities for programming formats and approaches, with the ability to capture the attention of audiences and keep them more engaged and connected with live shows.

Connecting never.no’s platform with Hego’s GS2 graphics engine has been possible due to the open architecture of both systems, allowing it to be plug-and-play. Looking to the future, both companies are committed to continue developing a deeper level of integration. The aim is to provide broadcast clients with functionality that is not powerful and adaptable, but is easy to integrate into broadcast workflows and simple to administrate editorially.

Speaking on behalf of Hego, Marko Valkonen, Head of Finnish Operations said “Partnering with never.no helps us to offer an even more compelling end-to-end solution to our clients. It is a very strong proposition to offer the market’s best social media application together with our world-class graphics capabilities.”

Echoing the same sentiments from never.no, Zachary Weiner, Director of Global Marketing commented “We’ve seen some exceptional results from the projects we have so far enabled with Hego, moving forward we’re excited to bring our partnership worldwide, allowing broadcast audiences to be enthralled with amazing graphics and robust interactivity for new found levels of viewer engagement, loyalty and retention.”