Teletrax has been awarded a top industry prize for its unique ShowTracker television monitoring service at an awards ceremony during the annual International Broadcasting Convention (IBC). Teletrax, a subsidiary of Medialink Worldwide Incorporated, is the first and only global digital video monitoring and media asset management service.
A worldwide panel of 23 industry experts proclaimed Teletrax the winner of the ‘Best Content Protection Technology for Video Broadcast’ competition at Cable & Satellite International magazine’s ‘Product of the Year Awards 2005’. After reviewing a total of 173 entries, in 16 categories, the judges honored Teletrax’s long-form program tracking and monitoring service with the prestigious award in front of an invited audience at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam.
“Teletrax is already providing an important monitoring service for short-form content like news and promotions, but this solution for long-form programming gives content and rights owners much greater clarity about what is happening to their assets once they have been distributed.” said John Moulding, editor of Cable & Satellite International, during the awards presentation.
Moulding, who also assembles the judging panel for the awards, continued: “You don’t need much imagination to realize what a benefit Teletrax’s ShowTracker can be. I think the fact that the judges chose Teletrax ahead of more traditional Conditional Access content protection solutions is testimony to the degree to which the market needs a solution like this.”
The judging panel of industry analysts, consultants and senior engineering managers noted that Teletrax’s ShowTracker enables program distributors to accurately track the number of times a specific episode is broadcast within a contractual period. Producers can also determine if a program was aired in its entirety and track playdates versus schedules to determine pre-emptions. Barter playdates, in which programs are distributed with pre-sold commercials, can also be confirmed with advertisers. In addition, Teletrax tracks clients’ use of promotional material, assisting producers and distributors in computing return-on-investment and highlighting opportunities for increased promotional impact.
“We are extremely proud to have received this prized international recognition,” said Andy Nobbs, president of Teletrax. “This award further highlights our position as a class-leading television content protection and rights management service. With a growing list of content owners such as major movie studios, TV networks, syndicators, advertisers, and news organizations embracing the Teletrax service, we are further solidifying our position as the industry standard.”
Launched in 2002 as a service developed by a joint venture between Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG) and Medialink, with an underlying technology that is patent protected both by Philips and Digimarc Corp. (Nasdaq: DMRC), Teletrax’s technology embeds an imperceptible and indelible digital watermark into video whenever it is edited, transmitted, broadcast or duplicated.