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Increase Ad Revenue Across VOD, OTT and Addressable Linear with SureFire Video Ad Server

Denver, April 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Imagine Communications today announced the addition of SureFire video ad server to its suite of monetization solutions, addressing decade–old gaps in the cost, yield, and quality of advertising on digital video streams. The game–changing product will be shown for the first time at the 2022 NAB Show (24""27 April, Las Vegas Convention Center, booth C2122).

SureFire provides the linear–like control and brand protection needed to directly sell inventory on OTT platforms, enabling media companies to sell and fulfil campaigns across their entire audience. It also enables media companies to lower overall costs by eliminating silos, while increasing margins and keeping more ad revenue via direct sales " eliminating intermediaries that take a percentage of revenue.

The result is more revenue, higher eCPM prices and improved fill rates, as well as a great advertiser and viewer experience.

"Digital video advertising is growing rapidly, by as much as 50% according to some sources," says Brad Herman, senior vice president, product, at Imagine Communications. "But we don't think that the monetization is as effective or safe as it has been for linear TV."

While multiplatform content delivery is fast becoming ubiquitous, quick digital deployments have led many media companies to deploy separate ad management systems for OTT and traditional linear, which is expensive, inefficient and often results in a poor experience for both viewers and advertisers. SureFire, combined with Imagine's unified monetization solution, consolidates cross–platform workflows, enabling media companies to increase revenue opportunities, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), and deliver a consistent, quality experience for streaming OTT and VOD.

Viewers and advertisers desire a quality, linear–like advertising experience across all video platforms and devices; however, brand rules, such as frequency or competitive separation, are often not enforced on OTT platforms. SureFire enables common, broadcast advertising rules across OTT and traditional linear, providing a unified premium ad experience for viewers wherever they consume content.

SureFire operates as a managed cloud service on Amazon Web Services (AWS), so it has flexibility and scale to meet the needs of any media company. Auto–scaling enables SureFire to support millions of ad requests per second, with sub–100ms response times even under heavy load. It uses the advertising industry–standard VAST and VMAP protocols to communicate dynamic ad insertion instructions with AWS Elemental MediaTailor.

Using open APIs, SureFire has been pre–integrated with Imagine's Landmark Sales ad management platform, providing media companies a smooth path to unified monetization of OTT and linear TV. SureFire is also fully compatible with the recently announced Imagine Aviator cloud–native, unified origination and monetization platform, providing broadcast–quality ad decisions to monetize OTT and FAST channels created by Aviator.

"All the projections for advertising suggest that linear television revenues are relatively flat," Herman adds. "In order to thrive, media companies must find a way of capturing the premium values of linear television and applying it to their digital advertising "" maintaining brand values and aggregating audiences across all platforms. SureFire is designed to deliver against these needs."

The first customer deployments of SureFire are expected in the summer of 2022.

During the 2022 NAB Show, Brad Herman will host "The Importance of Creating a Linear–Like Advertising Experience for Connected TV" (Sunday, April 24, 1:00–1:30 p.m. PT, Capitalize Inspiration Zone), a panel discussion on the challenges in addressable OTT cloud monetization and best practices to support premium advertising.

For more information about Imagine Communications' products and solutions, please visit https://www.imaginecommunications.com

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About Imagine Communications

Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, futureproof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission–critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world's video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud–enabled, software–defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit https://www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

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Imagine Aviator Maximizes Revenue Potential and Viewing Quality Across Linear and VOD Services

Denver, April 14, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As media companies are challenged to meet growing demand for content on any screen and deliver profitability, Imagine Communications today announces the introduction of Imagine Aviator, the first truly cloud–native platform that enables broadcasters, MVPDs and digital–first providers to plan, make and monetize premium–quality linear and OTT content from a single, unified platform. The ground–breaking platform " designed to enable media companies to extract the maximum revenue potential from their assets " will make its debut at the 2022 NAB Show (24""27 April, Las Vegas Convention Center, booth C2122).

Aviator raises the bar for monetization of content across all screens, enabling media companies to optimize ad delivery, significantly improve the revenue of otherwise under–monetized OTT content and generate greater profitability from their media assets. Architected for an ever–evolving future, Aviator offers flexible subscription and SaaS purchase options that suit new business models and an agile, cloud–based design that allows media companies to continue to deliver and monetize content no matter how consumer viewing habits change.

"We understand the challenges and complexities that premium brands have in today's fluid media landscape," says Rob Malcolm, chief product officer at Imagine Communications. "With Aviator, we are bringing together our experience and intellectual property in a unique, cloud–native platform that maximizes monetization of content across broadcast and OTT platforms today " and readies media companies to adapt and thrive no matter what the future holds."

Aviator combines the critical capabilities of scheduling, rights management, channel origination, live events, VOD, ad sales, ad placement, ad serving, campaign management, and more into a single cloud platform. It creates a converged solution that delivers linear programming and video–on–demand content with ads and triggers for local and dynamic ad insertion, making it easier for media companies to successfully monetize broadcast, OTT, FAST, pop–up and VOD content. Providing fully automated operation of thematic channels, the new platform also guarantees high audio and video quality on all outlets and supports the demands of premium services.

Running in the public cloud, Aviator requires only a web browser and internet connection to securely access and operate all aspects of the platform, placing control at the operators' fingertips wherever they are based " at the office, a remote location or when working from home. It can run either in a media company's own cloud account, or in Imagine's SaaS environment, where it is monitored, managed and maintained by Imagine, allowing customers to reap the benefits of operational efficiency, while maintaining control of all creative aspects of their content.

At launch, Aviator will include all the capabilities required to solve the complex needs of delivering premium–quality, sophisticated linear channels with unified origination "" originating broadcast and OTT linear streams from a single playlist supporting ad insertion. Its ability to integrate content acquisition from live streams, file sources such as video clips, audio and captions makes Aviator the perfect tool for delivering live sports, news, and scheduled and unscheduled live events workflows.

"We will continue to add functionality on an aggressive roadmap schedule," Malcolm adds. "Later this year, we will expand the Aviator platform's monetization capabilities to allow media companies to sell their own ad inventory rather than limiting them to only plugging in a demand–side platform to fill available inventory. This will enable media companies to maximize their yield, which in turn allows them to afford more premium content rights."

At the heart of Aviator is Imagine's "audience–first" ad placement engine, which will allow media companies to sell inventory by audience, by context, or by spot " regardless of the platform or delivery mechanism. New functionality will enable media companies to maximize revenue by targeting commercials to audiences accurately; delivering CPM/CPI–style metrics across all platforms, including broadcast; and monetizing scenarios that are difficult to plan in advance, such as extra time in sporting events and breaking news programming.

Malcolm continues, "As consumers find more ways to watch, the efficiencies of cloud play an important role, making it easier for media companies to address broadening advertising opportunities and create highly impactful and dynamic channels with genuine appeal to viewers. Some aspects of the TV landscape remain uncertain, but making content available on all screens in a way that allows our customers to achieve their full revenue potential requires convergence of content planning, origination and monetization. And that is exactly what Aviator makes possible."

For more information about Imagine Communications' products and solutions, please visit https://www.imaginecommunications.com

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About Imagine Communications

Imagine Communications empowers the media and entertainment industry through transformative innovation. Broadcasters, networks, video service providers and enterprises around the world rely on our optimized, futureproof, multiscreen video and revenue enablement solutions every day to support their mission–critical operations. Today, nearly half of the world's video channels traverse our products, and our software solutions drive close to a third of global ad revenue. Through continuous innovation, we are delivering the most advanced IP, cloud–enabled, software–defined network and workflow solutions in the industry. Visit https://www.imaginecommunications.com for more information, and follow us on Twitter @imagine_comms.

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