GeoBroadcast Solutions announced Thursday that through an ownership change, it has rebranded as Aktira. The result is a whole new business model for the radio technology company.
One of the company’s existing investors has established a new controlled entity which now owns all of GBS’ key assets, a spokesperson told us.
Aktira will encompass all of the company’s intellectual property, engineering and commercial operations. That includes its FM signal-boosting and geotargeting products: MaxxCasting, ZoneCasting and Lazer.
The existing GeoBroadcast Solutions team, including CEO and founder Chris Devine, remains in place, but Aktira has added new leadership. Ken Shapiro joins the company to lead its commercial strategy, Louis Santor will handle financial planning and Jason Anderson from the advisory group Quire will assist the team.
We find it particularly notable that, backed by approximately $60 million to get the model to market validation, Aktira is offering what it calls a no-upfront-cost model.
The release identified Jennifer and Brian White as lead investors. They are now leading an effort to raise equity and debt growth capital to support expanded deployment.
“Station groups can roll out across markets without funding transmitters, engineering or installation, an approach Aktira believes will significantly accelerate adoption given the cash constraints facing broadcasters,” an Aktira release stated.
In exchange, Aktira would retain a share of generated advertising revenue, tied to Zonecasting and Laser.
Through this new model, Aktira is seeking enterprise agreements at the group broadcaster level. “We believe the large broadcasters have the clearer advantage given the number of markets and owned stations,” the spokesperson explained. “However, we also believe smaller broadcasters can work in partnership to deploy systems together in markets to share in the benefits of the technology.”
Aktira said it is currently in discussions with “several major radio group operators” for deployments.
FM booster technology
MaxxCasting uses synchronized booster transmitters to aid FM coverage within a market. There have been around 15 such deployments completed or initiated, the release said, including in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston.
ZoneCasting allows stations to split their coverage areas into geographic zones with the goal of airing localized commercials. The Aktira spokesperson told us that the company’s first ZoneCasting deployments are scheduled for Las Vegas and Boston, and both soon will be live.
The spokesperson told us that ads through ZoneCasting generally see higher CPMs, which would support the new revenue sharing arrangement.
The newest offering, Lazer, syncs advertising displays and QR codes to compatible connected-car dashboards.
“We believe clients will prefer the revenue share approach given it aligns all of our interests, but we will offer Lazer as a component that could be licensed if certain broadcasters prefer that opportunity,” the spokesperson told Radio World.
In a field test, marketing agency Dentsu placed Jack in the Box spots on KSJO(FM) in San Jose, Calif., that aired on specific ZoneCasting nodes in Dublin, Pleasanton and Livermore, Calif.
[Related: “Taming Diversity Delay and Packet Loss in Single-Frequency Networks”]
