Sony agreed to sell Gracenote to Tribune Co.,...
Sony agreed to sell Gracenote to Tribune Co., ending a five-year effort to broadly deploy the music database service and position its automatic content recognition (ACR) software as part of a proposed Internet-based alternative to cable TV. Sony also had…
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planned to use Gracenote to “enhance and accelerate” its digital content. The agreement is for $170 million, less than the $260 million Sony paid for Gracenote in 2008. The Gracenote sale will result in a gain of about $60 million to Sony’s operating income, Sony said. The Gracenote deal is expected to close in Q1, Tribune said. ACR software was designed to enable hardware to recognize the channel, program and advertisement that was playing on a screen. It was developed around an audio technology that was originally created to compare a song’s characteristics, or waveform “fingerprints,” with an archive of music fingerprints. Gracenote also developed the eyeQ interactive program guide (IPG), which it once positioned to compete with Rovi’s TotalGuide IPG. The eyeQ could well play into Tribune’s base of TV and movie metadata, which will be expanded with the addition of Gracenote’s base of 180 million music tracks. “This transaction extends and complements” Tribune’s metadata business while also “deepening” its “slate of subscription services,” said Tribune CEO Peter Liguori in a statement. The acquisition includes Gracenote’s portfolio of 90 patents as well as a business that provides data and information on 1 million TV programs and movies to 30 countries and is installed in 50 million vehicles. Gracenote counts Apple iTunes, MTV and Amazon among its customers.