U.S. media group Meredith Corporation has chosen to standardize its workflow on Avid’s MediaCentral® Platform. Over a six-year period, Avid will upgrade 10 stations, install new Avid workflows at two additional stations, and enable Meredith to migrate to a virtualized environment, reducing costs and boosting efficiency while also benefiting from the advantage of adopting a common platform across the enterprise.
Meredith’s Local Media Group includes 17 owned or operated television stations reaching 11 percent of U.S. households. Meredith’s portfolio is concentrated in large, fast-growing markets, with seven stations in the nation’s Top 25–including Atlanta, Phoenix, St. Louis and Portland–and 13 in Top 50 markets. Its stations produce 700 hours of local news and entertainment every week, delivering 24/7 news coverage on digital, mobile and broadcast platforms in large, high-growth markets. Faced with the pressures of operating in a digital environment, Meredith needed to upgrade its aging infrastructure and reduce expenditures. A mix of disparate news production equipment at different stations made technology upgrades, support, training and planning complicated and expensive.
Meredith’s enterprise-wide adoption of Avid’s MediaCentral Platform will help the media company overcome these challenges. With a single platform across the enterprise and planned upgrades every two years, Meredith’s stations will benefit from advanced tools and workflows for enterprise-wide search and content sharing, and for embracing social media.
“Avid is a leader in the broadcast news industry and has been a trusted partner for many years,” said Larry Oaks, VP of Technology at Meredith. “By standardizing on Avid’s platform, we have a one-stop shop for all our technology, support and training needs across our newsrooms, which will enable us to reduce costs, save a great deal of time and effort, and give us the tools we need to succeed in today’s digital environment.”
Meredith’s new workflow comprises Avid’s comprehensive tools and workflow solutions to create, deliver and optimize media, including Avid NEXIS®, the media industry’s first and only software-defined storage platform, MediaCentral | UX, the cloud-based, web front end for the MediaCentral Platform, Avid Interplay® | Production for asset management, and Avid iNEWS® and iNEWS | Command for newsroom management. Meredith will use Media | Distribute to deliver content to social media channels, as well as Media Composer® | Cloud Remote and Media Composer | NewsCutter® Option for nonlinear editing, and Avid AirSpeed® video servers. Avid Professional Services will provide installation, support and customized enterprise-wide training.
“Meredith is the latest member of Avid’s growing community of preeminent customers to adopt an enterprise-wide single platform approach,” said Jeff Rosica, president at Avid. “With Avid’s flexible commercial options and deployment models, Meredith can keep its stations and staff at the forefront of technology, virtualize its infrastructure, and respond quickly to new challenges and opportunities–all while reducing costs.”
Director Angie Bird Joins Scheme Engine For U.S. Representation
Scheme Engine has added director/photographer Angie Bird to its roster for U.S. representation spanning commercials and original content.
Bird crafts deeply human and charismatic portrayals of community, empowerment and the rituals of celebration across commercials, elevated documentary and short film. A former agency creative, Bird has a body of brand work consisting of cinematic lifestyle campaigns for Nike, Dove, Allstate, Procter & Gamble and the YMCA, among others. Prior to joining Scheme Engine, Bird was most recently represented in the U.S. for commercials by production house Curfew.
Two years into her career, Bird back in 2016 won a Cannes Young Director Award for “Mean Tweets,” a provocative campaign for Raising the Roof, that challenged stereotypes of unhoused individuals with striking humanizing portraits. The project earned honors at the Clios, and Webbys and was shortlisted at Cannes.
Her Gillette campaign, “First Shave”--a heartfelt examination of masculinity in the trans community--earned three Cannes prizes and won honors at the Clios and The One Show.
As a director invested in films that ignite conversation, and inspire action, Bird embraces challenging, overlooked stories, bringing to light complex, authentically heroic characters faced with cultural stigmatization and gender-based discrimination. She co-wrote and directed "Short Life Stories" for White Ribbon and Canadian agency Bensimon Byrne--a shattering call to dismantle transphobia, following the journey of a transgender woman as she steps into her authentic life. The campaign won six awards at One SCREEN 2024, including Best in Region: North America and Best in Show
“I’m inspired,” affirmed Bird, “to create stories that champion the... Read More