TownNews Expands Use of Blackbird Digital Content Production; Becomes 46th TV News Station With the Platform

TownNews has again expanded its deployment of Blackbird for the fast production of digital news content in the US. This is the fourth deployment of Blackbird by TownNews within the past 15 months.

TownNews has signed up a further six US TV stations that will use Blackbird to rapidly view, edit and publish their video news content to social and web platforms. When paired with TownNews’ Field59 VMS, news stories can be delivered with unbeatable speed and control using Blackbird’s browser-based cloud video editing platform.

The six additional US TV stations that will use Blackbird are based in Wisconsin, Missouri, Washington, and Texas – bringing the total of TV stations using Blackbird to 46 across 27 states.

Over 350 local TV stations in the US produce around six hours of news content per day with the industry generating nearly $28 billion in revenues annually. With an estimated 43% of US adults now sourcing their news from websites and social media (source: Pew Research Centre), millions of viewers in the US consume content through the Blackbird and TownNews’ Field59 VMS platform.

Globally the trend towards mobile news consumption continues to rise – doubling in most countries over the past six years. According to the Digital News Report 2018, on average 62% of people weekly use their smartphones for news content.

“Blackbird is a great partner to TownNews with proven technology providing high-quality, frame-accurate cloud editing software for our broadcast customers,” commented Derek Gebler, Vice President of Broadcast and Video for TownNews. “We consider their team to be part of our team and are true collaborators.”

“We’re delighted that Blackbird is recognized by so many TownNews’ customers to be the best-in-market for rapid digital news production. To expand the adoption of the combined Blackbird and Field 59 solution from 3 to 46 US news stations in just 15 months is a fantastic and very encouraging endorsement,” Ian McDonough, CEO of Blackbird. “It’s also a perfect example of how Blackbird can land and expand in large high-media markets.

“Blackbird is completely unique in its ability to enable media companies to create and deliver high-quality video content very fast. Having been specifically built from the ground up for the cloud, Blackbird delivers very significant productivity and efficiency benefits which all enterprise companies working with video can take full advantage of.”