News and Events

Broadcast Group Newport Television Chooses VCI Solutions' Business System Software for All of Its 56 Stations

Springfield, MA December 15, 2008 - VCI Solutions, a trusted provider of sales and traffic  software systems designed exclusively for broadcast and cable station operations, today announced that Newport Television, the 14th largest TV station group in the United States, has expanded its relationship with VCI’s Orion® Business System software, a comprehensive media revenue solution that enables sales, traffic and accounting applications to efficiently manage the core functions of broadcast operations. Newport benefits most by having standardized reporting capabilities for sales data analysis across all of its 56 stations in 24 markets.

Newport was struggling with inefficient upstream reporting capabilities and was looking for one solution. After a competitive review, Newport selected VCI. With Orion, Newport is able to realize efficiencies through the standardization of key data used for analyzing trends and forecasting revenues, and has streamlined scheduling operations through customized weekly reporting. Installations began in November and three channels in Mobile, Ala., were the first to go live, on December 1; all stations will be live by the end of January.

“With more channels to manage, we needed to maximize our resources to efficiently work with our Internet division and yield management pricing system,” said Craig Millar, Newport’s senior vice president of operations. “VCI’s intuitive yet robust platform stood out as the best option to expand to all of our systems with minimal disruption to our current business. They’ve worked closely with us; we’re looking forward to realizing full benefits with all 56 stations.”

Orion’s “back office” revenue and inventory management system completes all program and commercial scheduling from the time content is sold through its reconciliation; VCI describes this end-to-end workflow as managing content from Point-of-Sale to Point-of-Air®. In addition, Orion is reliable and flexible, and supports the growing centralization of broadcast operations with a single database.

“In today’s multi-platform world, the ability to quickly identify new revenue opportunities is the key to managing broadcast operations for future growth,” said Sarah Foss, VCI Solutions’ president and CEO. “We have good-standing relationships with the Clear Channel stations that Newport acquired, as we have been their primary vendor for streamlining media workflows for quite some time. We’re excited to expand our relationship to completely align Newport’s traffic and scheduling workflows and help them further enhance their efficiency. Orion dynamically exchanges information between systems, which Newport can tailor to its business planning needs.”

About Newport Television Group
Newport Television was newly created in March to acquire Clear Channel Television, a 56-station broadcast group in 24 markets across the country. The stations are primarily affiliated with broadcast networks ABC, NBC, WB, UPN and Telemundo. Newport Television is the 14th largest television station group in the United States and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Please visit www.newporttv.com for more information.