Red Bee Media acquires software firm TV Genius

TV Genius’ products include a tool for measuring Twitter activity around TV programmes and a converged search and recommendation engine for TV, web and mobile that provides live feedback and statistics for broadcasters.

“Offering broadcasters, content owners and platform operators enhanced managed services that enable the viewer journey across platforms, devices and screens is a top priority for Red Bee Media,” chief executive Bill Patrizio told Broadcast.

“If we can drive relevance and personalisation through the deployment of software and tools that is good for our customers and creates another business opportunity for us.”

Red Bee will integrate TV Genius’ products into its own product roadmap of content discovery and rich metadata solutions to sell “an end-to-end solution around metadata, EPG, listings and viewer navigation, personalisation and relevance”.

In June, Red Bee launched Red Player, a white-label video platform for broadcasters and content owners, and Patrizio said the firm’s products were “a key part of Red Player solution stack…allowing us to install the software to help our partners deploy a relevant EPG.”

Patrizio declined to comment on exactly how much Red Bee spent on the “multi-million pound” deal that will see six London-based TV Genius staff join Red Bee.

He added that Red Bee will continue to look at developing tools that help to monetise content across platforms.

“We will be opportunistic and disciplined buyers. Areas such as analytics, insertion advertising – those are areas we will investigate for internal development or potentially for further acquisition.”