IRVINE, Calif. – January 21, 2009 – Bitcentral, Inc, a leading provider of news content distribution and management solutions, today announced the launch the first cross group Oasis file sharing system for use between WFLX (Raycom Media), and WPEC (Freedom Communications). Both stations target the West Palm Beach, Florida area and will benefit from the ability to share news content while increasing revenue.
Oasis delivers a broadcast-quality news video distribution and aggregation system that integrates into both stations’ existing workflows. The result is the ability to move media quickly and efficiently in non-proprietary SD or HD formats. As competing stations in local markets look for ways to shave operating expenses, many are looking to Bitcentral’s Oasis system to allow local content producers to pool resources and content, or by sharing content production resources among their own group of stations.

Raycom’s WFLX newscast is produced by Freedom’s WPEC station. Bitcentral’s Oasis installation at WPEC will archive only the news produced for the Raycom station. As a result, other Raycom affiliates will be able to access the same content to utilize for their broadcasts for regional distribution when necessary. Addressing the benefits of the content sharing agreement with WPEC, Susana Schuler, Raycom Media’s Vice President of News, said, “We’ve taken Oasis and used it as a mechanism to strategically align our content regionally and expand it outside of Raycom to generate really good material that transcends a designated market area. Raycom has used the Oasis system for about two years and has archived more than one million stories with it; it’s been terrific.”

Charles Gray, Director of New Media Content for Raycom, added, “In order to continue to improve the news product that is produced under the WFLX brand, we invested in the Oasis technology and installed it at WPEC, which will also give them easy access to the video used by the other 30 Raycom Media stations - so that’s a whole pool of new local news video not accessible to anyone else in their market that they wouldn’t have had access to before.”

John King, Bitcentral’s Vice President of Engineering, commented, “This is truly an historic migration from completely separate news-gathering to pooled local content production. Stations across the country are looking for ways to share costs, pool resources, and still deliver unique, compelling, local content to multiple platforms. With approximately a hundred local stations already using Oasis, Bitcentral is certainly the industry leader in breaking down the barriers of traditional news-gathering and delivering cost-effective, revenue-producing solutions to the local news content production industry.”

Television Broadcast’s “2-minute drill” podcast featuring cross-group sharing with Oasis