WideOrbit acquiring VCI Solutions

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WideOrbit, provider of business management software for media companies, announced its intent to acquire the Orion Business System (traffic) assets of VCI Solutions, provider of sales and traffic software solutions for the TV broadcast and cable industry.


The closing of the deal is expected by 11/1. VCI clients include CNBC, MSNBC, E!, Comcast Sports, Univision, Galavision, BET- Black Entertainment Television, NHL, Granite, Freedom, Newport and CTV Canada, among others.

VCI had named Robert Furlong as its new CEO and president in May. Furlong replaced Sarah Foss, who left the Springfield, MA-based VCI in late February. WideOrbit CEO Eric Mathewson tells RBR-TVBR VCI has had a tough time competing for a while, but for 26 years had a proud history: “They swapped CEOs about six months ago and [he] came in and said he didn’t think that the current business model with the existing products was sustainable. So he gave us a holler. We’re super-glad to have the VCI clients on board—they had a lot of great television and cable network clients.”

Wide Orbit will be holding onto a number of VCI staff. Mathewson says they don’t plan on reselling the VCI product. “We just simply are going to be supporting the existing customers through the end of their existing contracts and then we hope to convince them to switch to a Wide Orbit platform upon conclusion of that contract…Our efforts in the cable network area are very significant, although they are more recent than theirs. So we’re very excited about the progress of our product and how that’s doing in the field and, again, hope to transition a lot of the VCI clients over.”

“We are very comfortable with WideOrbit carrying on the work that VCI has targeted with our partners and clients,” said Lowell Putnam, Founder and Chairman of VCI. “We look forward to working with WideOrbit on transitioning our partner and client relationships.”

Headquartered in San Francisco, WideOrbit is used by more than 4,000 television stations, radio stations, cable networks, cable interconnects and digital out of home networks worldwide, managing more than $14 billion in annual ad revenue.