TownNews Extends Adoption Of Blackbird

Forbidden Technologies has announced that TownNews has extended its adoption of Blackbird with its recent deployment by Block Communications.

Block Communications, owner and operator of TV stations in Illinois and Ohio, has broadened its relationship with TownNews, which has provided video and OTT services to Kentucky TV station, WDRB, since January this year. Two further TV stations, WAND out of Decatur, Illinois and WLIO based in Lima, Ohio will launch TownNews Field59 VMS and OTT services this month increasing the total count of broadcast properties using the TownNews suite to nearly 50.

Blackbird gives TownNews' partners the power to rapidly access, navigate and manipulate video content no matter their location. When paired with the Field59 VMS, news stories can be delivered with unprecedented speed and control using Blackbird Forte’s browser-based enrichment, editorial and publishing tools. In June of this year, Forbidden announced that one of TownNews’ major partners was using Blackbird to deliver news content across multiple platforms to towns and cities in 11 states across the US.

"Block Communications will be benefiting from one of the fastest real-time digital video editing tools available," said Derek Gebler, TownNews VP of Broadcast and Video. "Combining Blackbird with the TownNews Field59 VMS creates a powerful all-in-one video capturing, editing, and management tool for broadcasters that need their content published fast."

Forbidden CEO, Ian McDonough, said: "These fantastic contract wins by TownNews show how popular our combined solution is with news networks distribution across quickly growing digital outlets. It's also further encouragement that Blackbird's OEM model is gaining serious traction in North America setting us up for further growth in 2019."