[ibimage==33070==Original==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
Baseline, a Los Angeles-based TV and film data company, has been acquired by Gracenote, a division of Tribune Media, for $50 million. Baseline’s TV and film data services and Studio System platform will will help Gracenote expand services into tradition television and studio production. Earlier in 2014, Gracenote was bought by Chicago-based The Tribune Company, now Tribune Media.
“For years, Baseline has served as the trusted source for entertainment data to help digital media companies, studios and agencies stay on top of a fast changing industry,” said John Batter, CEO of Gracenote in a statement. “Baseline’s deep production data coupled with its existing relationships with the studio community will help us improve the depth and breadth of the data we offer to existing Gracenote customers, as well as provides us a foundation to build products aimed squarely at serving the entertainment industry.”
Baseline has a diverse set of data and software products, including The Studio System, a business intelligence platform that is used by television and film professionals to track what is going within the entertainment industry. The platform has records on entertainment companies, person records, television and film production, past and present. Baseline boasts a movie and TV database of more than 300,000 movies and TV productions, information on 1.5 million TV and film professions, and box office data. Baseline’s data also runs television and film discovery for Hulu, several satellite operators, and on-demand movie services.
Baseline’s services should fit well with Gracenote’s, which are focused on digital music and television content discovery. Gracenote provides music lookup, recognition and suggestion technology for services like Spotify, iTunes, Rhapsody, and Xbox Music. The company also powers movie and TV discovery services for Roku and Tivo. The company also has TV, Film and Music recognition technology. Combining Baseline’s database with Gracenote’s should fill out Tribune Media’s entertainment data services quite well.
After de-coupling from its newspaper business, now called Tribune Publishing, Tribune Media is working hard to establish itself as an independent player in the entertainment space. In addition to entertainment data services, like Gracenote and now Baseline, Tribune Media has 42 local television stations and superstation WGN. Tribune Media has also been expanding itself via its investment arm Tribune Digital Ventures.
“The acquisition of Baseline continues our strategy to build upon our existing metadata expertise to advance Gracenote’s leadership in entertainment data and services,” said Peter Liguori, president and chief executive officer of Tribune Media. “We’ve made strategic acquisitions in the last few months that have expanded our geographic footprint and have strengthened Gracenote’s services. In combination with our recent international acquisitions, Baseline is yet another example of our commitment to provide customers the highest standard of global solutions in the metadata space.”
Baseline will continue to operate out of Los Angeles.
Have a tip for us, or know of a company that deserves coverage?
Email us via [email protected]
