Syncbak, which provides stations with streaming capabilities, said it is rebranding as Zeam Media.

The new name is designed to move Zeam from a tech company to a media and advertising company. 

Gray Television, the National Association of Broadcasters, Morgan Murphy Media and Northwest Broadcasting CEO Brian Brady are investors in the company.

The change comes after February’s launch of the Zeam streaming service, which features programming from about 300 local stations in markets covering roughly 80% of the U.S.

Jack Perry, CEO of Zeam, told Broadcasting+Cable that Gray executives suggested the name change because it was becoming more of a media company.

“We want to be a media company that has a tool that connects every broadcaster, every viewer and every creator,” Perry said. “We’re adding more and more viewers every day through our direct-to-consumer campaign, but we’re also connecting advertisers.”

Perry notes that Zeam’s tech stack is uniquely designed to look local first. “That’s going to be the highest-paying ad,” he said.

On the Zeam website, viewers are coming back six times a day and spending 90 minutes per day on the platform, according to Perry. “I think it’s going really well,” he said.

Zeam’s other activities include the Zeam Times Square studio in New York and Zeam 360, a mobile streaming channel originating from a Zeam-branded van that visits local stations and other interesting spots.

The company also offers MediaMogul by Zeam, a content management and monetization system, and AdSync by Zeam, which provides dynamic ad insertion technology for live and on-demand streams.

The new name was created working with marketing agency Known. Perry said Syncbak looked at 1,000 possibilities for a new name before settling on Zeam. Zeam was good because it was short — just four letters — and could be used as a verb. “We could own it and get the dot-com, which is still important today,” he said. “Once we landed on Zeam it was, let’s take it and run.”

Zeam has been running commercials with John Stamos supporting the streaming service and the company’s new name.

Syncbak and Gray launched VUit, another local streaming platform, in 2020. VUit will be shut down in favor of Zeam.

Backed by Gray Television, Morgan Murphy Media and the National Association of Broadcasters, OTT video company Syncbak is launching Zeam, a new free streaming platform for local stations.

Syncbak and Gray launched VUit, another local streaming platform in 2020. VUit will be shut down in favor of Zeam.

Zeam will offer live and on-demand news, sports and culture programming from 300 local TV stations covering 80% of the U.S.  owned by groups including Gray, CBS Stations, News-Press & Gazette, Hearst Television and Morgan Murphy.

The launch will be backed by an eight-figure marketing campaign and a commercial featuring actor John Stamos.

Zeam will air the commercial on about 100 stations during Super Bowl LVIII, which means the ad revenue will go to stations rather than CBS, which is broadcasting the game nationally.

“As viewers and the industry continue to migrate to streaming, local television stations need to find a way to build a sustainable business that helps them not just survive but thrive in the streaming age,” Syncbak CEO and founder Jack Perry said. “That’s why we are launching Zeam, which not only serves as a master connector between stations, advertisers and viewers, but will also redefine what a successful model for local OTT looks like by breaking down the biggest obstacles local stations face in streaming — cost and complexity.”

Stations are already streaming the content on platforms ranging from Roku and Amazon Fire to Allen Media Group’s Local Now and Sinclair's NewsOn.

Sinclair recently sold Stirr, its local-station streaming platform.

Zeam is designed to help local stations by distributing their content nationally and generate new revenues by using Syncbak’s advertising technology to sell ads to national and local advertisers.

Syncbak estimates that Zeam will have 5 billion advertising units to sell, giving it one of the largest ad inventories and first-party data pools in streaming.

Also being launched is Zeam360, a Zeam-branded van that serves as a mobile production studio and provides a 24/7 livestream mobile channel.

Zeam360 will go on a barnstorming tour, stopping at nearly 30 local broadcast stations en route to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Zeam has also established a new studio in New York’s Times Square. In addition to hosting independent content creators, the studio will serve as a billboard to promote local TV to the crowds who pass through Times Square daily.

According to Syncbak, VUit was profitable and served as a proof-of-concept for a local streaming platform. The average VUit viewer tuned in 29 times a month to watch programming from several markets. Some stations generated more than 100,000 a month in streaming revenues through VUit.

“Under Jack Perry’s leadership, Syncbak has a long-established reputation for being the champion of local content that the industry needs and deserves,” Gray TV co-CEO and president Pat LaPlatney said. “With the launch of Zeam, we are taking this to a whole new level, providing a platform that will benefit not just local station groups and advertisers, but also viewers themselves.”

VUit, the free ad-supported streaming provider of local broadcast news from all over the country, has entered into a content licensing deal with Paramount Global that gives it access to the local news feeds of 13 CBS owned stations.

Syncbak, the privately held tech company that launched VUit in 2020 with investment from Gray Television, also secured from Paramount access to CBS national entertainment and lifestyle content from shows including Inside Edition.

With the addition of the CBS-owned stations, all of them situated in major TV markets including New York and Los Angeles, VUit now carries local news and content from more than 260 stations across the U.S. covering nearly 80% of the country's designated marketing areas (167 markets in all).

Meanwhile, the Paramount entertainment and lifestyle brands will come in the form of three distinct FAST channels -- “Mixible" (formerly known as “ET Live”), “Inside Edition,” and “Dabl,” which is CBS Media Ventures’ lifestyle network.

“From our continued expansion of local news streaming across the country, to becoming a fresh and intriguing model for the syndication of national content, major players in the media world recognize the power and potential of what we have built,” said Syncbak CEO Jack Perry, in a statement.

“In an increasingly streaming-first world, this deal is a win for everyone -- for the stations looking to expand revenue opportunities, for advertisers looking to reach audiences in hyper-local and hyper-targeted ways, and for viewers who want to access content in a flexible, easy manner," Perry added.

In June, Syncbak announced rapid advertising growth across the platform, including a 31% year-over-year increase in ads served between June 2021 and June 2022, a 37% average CPM increase in the first half of the year, and revenue sharing among station groups growing by 121% for the first half of 2022.

Year to date, revenue sharing is up 192%, Syncbak added. ■

Syncbak is adding 18 stations to its VUit out of market local news streaming service after reaching agreement with six broadcast groups.

The stations give VUit news and special events from five additional markets: Chicago, Raleigh, North Carolina; Fort Myers, Florida; Norfolk, Virginia; and Salisbury, Maryland.

The stations are owned by Weigel Broadcasting (WCIU, WBND, WDJT and WYTU); Capitol Broadcasting (WRAL, WRAZ and WILM); Lockwood Broadcast Group (WSKY, WCAV, WDFX, WPGX and WTNZ); Marquee Broadcasting (WMDT, WNKY and WSWG); Fort Myers Broadcasting (WINK) and Sunbeam Television (WDHD and WSVN).

VUit lets viewers nationwide stream news from stations in out of town market. They can catch up new from their hometowns, watch high school sporting event or check out the weather where their friends or family live.

VUit now streams content from about 250 stations with coverage in nearly 80% of the top markets.

“These new deals are the latest example underscoring VUit’s position as the leading streaming destination for local news and cultural content that has appeal on a national scale,” Syncbak CEO Jack Perry said. “The value we offer to stations in scaling their streaming audience and digital revenue is unparalleled. As we continue to expand, we remain laser-focused on our bigger mission and vision: helping every station and station group thrive in the streaming landscape.”

VUit has stations from Gray Television (an early investor in the service), Cox Media Group, Hearst Television, Heritage Broadcasting, Morgan Murphy Media, News-Press and Gazette Co. and independent stations WFMZ Philadelphia and KTSF San Francisco. ■

Streaming technology company Syncbak said it hired Mike Fass as VP of broadcast services to help continue the expansion of VUit, a national platform carrying programming from local TV stations.

Fass had been VP of operations at Gray Television, one of VUit’s early backers.

“Syncbak and VUit have one of the deepest benches of technology talent within the industry and we are looking forward to having Mike as part of our team to grow this brain trust even further,” said Jack Perry, CEO of Syncbak. ”He has been an incredible architect of solutions that have helped so many local broadcasters build their OTT capabilities, expand their supporting technologies, and scale to new heights.”

Perry told Broadcasting+Cable that Syncbak’s vision was to connect every broadcaster with every viewer.

“Broadcasting is evolving. It’s over the air, over cable, over satellite, and now over the top," said Perry. "Having broadcast technology strength just makes us a better company. When we had the opportunity to hire Mike, I jumped on it."

Fass will work with Perry and CTO Steve Maher to develop OTT and ATSC 3.0 technologies to help broadcasters, advertisers and viewers. Fass reports directly to Maher.

Perry said ATSC 3.0 is an area where Fass will be very involved. “3.0 gives us an opportunity to take another path over to the viewer” and enable more personalization. “You’ll probably see VUit evolve into a single point of navigation. That single point of navigation really helps the broadcaster. Think of it like an electronic program guide on steroids.”

Fass started out at KOLN-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska. He got into the technical side and served as a technical director at MTV Networks’ Network Operations Center. He returned to local TV at WOWT-TV in Omaha, where he rose to director of technology before joining Gray corporate. 

“For me, it's an awesome opportunity to be joining this team with my background in broadcasting,” Fass said. “I have a lot of passion for leveraging technology to help journalists connect with their communities and get critical and important information out.”

Perry sees VUit which was launched in 2020 expanding to have at least one station in all 210 local markets by the end of the year.

“Mike’s going to help us do that,” Perry said. “A big part of his job is going to be to translate to his former brethren on the broadcast side just exactly what they need to do on the OTT side and really bring those two things together. “

In March Syncbak hired Kevin Dunaway, whose job is to help stations develop content for the OTT platform. Earlier Syncbak brought over Rachel Brecht as director of advertising. She had been a top local salesperson at Gray.

VUit has seen its viewership minutes triple in the past year, as viewers have turned to the platform with an increased appetite for a true local lens and perspective in major news and cultural events of interest to them outside of their current hometown. 

Gray stations are on VUit. Other broadcasters participation include Cox, Hearst Television, Heritage Broadcasting, Morgan Murphy Media, News Press and Gazette, Sunbeam and leading independent local stations such as WFMZ-TV in Philadelphia and KTSF-TV in San Francisco. ■

Extreme weather events dominated the list of the most watched stories on VUit, a platform that streams local station programming to out of market viewers.

VUit said that its minutes viewed tripled in 2021. In addition to weather, high school sports and graduations were popular with streamers.

The most watched television station on VUit was KTSF-TV, San Francisco, which provides programming in several Asian languages. 

Backed by Gray Television, VUit was launched by tech company Syncbak in 2020 and carries programming from about 200 stations covering 174 markets. 

Also: Syncbak’s VUit Adds 71 Stations to Local Content Streaming Platform

“On VUit, we are making it easy to get news where you are at, where you are from, where you are going and where news is breaking. As the viewers shift to OTT, we see it as our job to connect broadcasters, viewers, and advertisers and the plan is clearly working,” said Jack Perry, CEO and founder of Syncbak.

Coverage of this month’s tornadoes by WAVE-TV, Louisville, Kentucky; KAIT-TV, Jonesboro, Arkansas; and WBKO-TV, Bowling Green, Kentucky, quickly became the No. 2 news story on VUit, following only coverage of Hurricane Ida in August. VUit carried Ida coverage from WVUE-TV, New Orleans; WAFB-TV, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; WLBT-TV, Jackson, Mississippi; WLOX-TV, Biloxi, Mississippi; and KPLC-TV, Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Also: Gray Pulling Local Station News Content From Sinclair's NewsOn

Other popular stories on VUit included the Georgia Senate runoff election in January, Winter Storm Orleans, cold weather in Texas in February, extreme weather in Alabama in March, flooding in Louisiana in May, a fire in Rapid City, S.D., in March and the Iditarod sled dog race in March.

Among the most watched sports events were high school basketball from Kentucky in March on WYMT-TV, Hazard, Kentucky, and  the Michigan High School All-Star softball game on July 14 on WWTV, Traverse City, Michigan. Also popular were several  high school graduations on KCRG, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and fireworks from Traverse City, Michigan, on WWTV.

The cities with the most viewers logging onto VUit for local news content include San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Philadelphia, Traverse City-Cadillac, Wilkes Barre-Scranton-Hztn, Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, New York, Lexington, Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Marquette, and Charleston-Huntington.■

VUit, the year-old streaming service featuring local TV content, said it recently signed 71 additional stations to the platform.

Run by tech company Syncbak and backed by Gray Television, VUit will now have stations representing 174 of the 210 local markets. Some of the new stations are in major markets including Boston, Baltimore, Orlando, Sacramento and Pittsburgh. 

Group owners adding their stations to VUIt include Hearst Television, Cox Media Group, Citadel Communications, Morris Network and News Press & Gazette.

“We’re thrilled so many groups are jumping on board with VUit,” Jack Perry CEO of Syncbak, told Broadcasting+Cable. 

The growth of VUit comes as more stations see streaming as an opportunity to distribute their content nationally. In addition to VUit, local-to-national streaming platforms include Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Stirr and NewsOn platforms, Allen Media Group’s Local Now, Hearst’s Very Local Amazon Fire’s local news on demand and Haystack News.

“Broadcasters are recognizing they have to get their programming out there,” Perry said. 

With several platforms offering local station content, “there’s going to be a battle right now,” he said, but eventually “you’re going to start to see some of these lesser products kind of fade away.”

Syncbak has an advantage in the market in that it has its own streaming platform, lowering its costs, according to Perry. Eventually the market will winnow down to one or two players. “We know we’re going to be around,” he said.

In many cases, Syncbak also handles the streaming for stations’ news apps and websites when those stations join VUit. “In one fell swoop, they can significantly reduce their streaming costs,” Perry said.

Perry said VUit has been growing in terms of viewer engagement as well as growing the number of stations contributing.

“It’s exceeding our expectations in terms of its stickiness,” Perry said. The average VUit user comes back to the platform eight times a month spending more than 20 minutes each time, for an average of about 8 hours a month.

He declined to say exactly how many users VUit was attracting, but said it was between 250,000 and half a million. ”It’s not in the millions yet, but we’re pleased with it,” he said.

Ad revenue has been growing, particularly local market advertising where out-of-market content is being viewed. Syncbak’s ad technology is delivering billions of ads annually, Perry said.

“Stations are just now realizing they have the ability to sell local advertising in this OTT space,” he said. VUit shares the revenue it generates on the site, but local stations also have opportunities to sell commercials.

Also: VUit Goes to the Dogs With Iditarod Coverage

Perry said VUit has been profitable since it was two months old. The combination of a growing fill rate, increasing ad prices and low streaming costs is VUit’s formula for financial success, he said.

“VUit has enabled our local stations to reach viewers with not only live news and programming relevant to them, but locally-produced on-demand content that viewers from across the country tune into,” said Pat LaPlatney, co-CEO & president at Gray Television, an investor in Syncbak which recently added eight more stations to VUit. “We want every local station to be streaming on VUit. Viewers download the app to watch their local channel, and stick around to watch programming from local stations all across the country.”

In addition to stations owned by large groups, VUit lets locally owned stations like WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio, which is still owned by the family that founded the station in 1953.

“We’re not a big group so we don’t have that direct path to a national over-the-top platform,” WFMJ general manager Jack Grdik told B+C. “After experimenting with VUit, we saw it was functional and easy to uses. It just made sense.”

Grdik said Youngstown had a large group of snowbirds who head down to the Sarasota and Tampa areas of Florida for the winter, and VUit would help keep them connected to the station and news back home. The station also plans to set up a second channel on VUit that would carry high school sports highlights and, as the 2022 election approaches, political news.

“The litmus test will be seeing in a year from now if the channel is growing and how much revenue we’re seeing,” he said. "I think it takes time to build an audience, so we’re going to be patient with this.”

Syncbak’s Perry said using VUit helps stations at a time when they’re struggling to shift from simply broadcasting to providing multi-platform content. “We think when you put our one platform in, we eliminate so much of the complexity in streaming,” he said.

Syncbak is now looking to improve VUit by making it easier for users to find the news they are looking for from the markets they’re interested in.

“The big growth area is personalization,” Perry said. VUit is trying to get viewers to sign-in, making it easier for their preferences to be tracked. “When they fire up VU it, what they’ll see is their own personal newscast from every station that would be of interest to them,” he said. ”The viewer will feel like it’s her own custom newscast.”

That will also be good for the stations, enabling them to monetize individual news stores better, Perry said. 

Among the new stations on VUit are all six stations owned by Morris Network, Bahakel Communication’s six stations, and two stations from Marks Radio Group.

Hearst’s WCVB-TV, the first VUit station in Boston, Citadel Communications’ 24-hour Suncoast News Network, WSNN, is streaming news from Tampa on VUit.

Cox Media Group now has 33 stations in 20 markets participating in VUit as the result of a deal announced in September.

Cox Media Group has signed an agreement to stream its local content on the VUit national streaming service.

VUit was started by tech company Syncbak with backing from Gray Television. With Cox Media Group’s stations, VUit now has local coverage and programming in 150 of the nation’s 210 markets.

With more viewers streaming, stations are looking for ways to distribute their content over-the-top to reach both local cord-cutters and audiences outside the reach of their broadcast signals. They’re also looking to cash in on the growing stream of ad dollars going to digital media and connected TV.

CMG, acquired in 2019 by Apollo Global Management, has been considering its digital options. It had its individual stations streaming to local audiences. Streaming accounted for about 10% of those stations’ viewers.

Sinclair Broadcast Group has built a centralized streaming platform--Stirr--around its local stations. Nexstar Media Group is using its stations to feed local stories into its cable news channel NewsNation.

CMG has opted to cast its lot with VUit. Its stations newscasts also stream on NewsOn, another platform controlled by Sinclair.

“We continue to see enormous opportunity for local news on digital platforms to not only drive revenue but to extend the quality of our reporting reach of hyperlocal news across the country,” said Marian Pittman, executive VP of content, product & innovation for CMG. “We’re thrilled to partner with VUit to make this happen.”

CMG gives VUit stations in major markets including Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, Orlando and Charlotte.

Also Read: Kevin Dunaway Joins VUit After 22 Years at WWTV

VUit said it will work with the CMG stations partners to optimize their streaming activity. In additional to putting their current local news and culture programming on the platform, they will also be able to create original content that could appeal to viewers beyond their local market.

In addition to CMG and Gray, stations owned by Cowles Media Co., Heritage Broadcasting Group and Morgan Murphy Media have signed on with VUit.

“Hyperlocal news is no longer just for those living in the community. There's an appetite for these stories well beyond the local broadcasters’ markets. Cox is the perfect partner to amplify VUit’s content offerings, and we’re excited to be able to bring the high-quality content of their local stations to viewers nationwide,” said Jack Perry, CEO of Syncbak.

Also Read: KTSF’s ‘Kung Fu Theater’ Takes National Stage Streaming Via VUit

Via VUit coverage of local events can reach a national audience. Coverage of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race from KTUU-TV, Gray’s station in Anchorage, Alaska, attracted viewers from 178 markets, a stream of the Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial from Heritage Broadcasting’s WWTV in Traverse City, Michigan, attracted viewers in 132 markets. Viewers in 65 markets watched as Gray’s KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapid, Iowa, streamed LinnMar High School’s graduation ceremony. 

A San Francisco TV station focusing on Asian viewers has revived its show Kung Fu Theater and is taking it national through the VUit streaming service.

 VUit, launched by Syncbak and backed by Gray Television, makes programming from 200 local stations available over-the-top, giving stations more exposure and creating opportunities for new revenue.

KTSF-TV, owned by Lincoln Broadcasting, originally aired Kung Fu Theater, a campy martial arts program, 30 years ago. On July 27, KTSF began airing new episodes of the program.

General manager Jack Schwartz told Broadcasting+Cable that the station located the show’s original host, martial art champion Tat Wong, who has a Bay Area Kung Fu academy. Wong, still in fighting shape all these years later, shot fresh openings in English for the new episodes.

The show features three popular series from China, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, The Return of the Condor Heroes and Tian Long Ba Bu. The episodes air in Chinese, with Chinese and English subtitles. Chinese viewers expect programs to be subtitled. The English subtitles make the show accessible to general audiences, Schwartz said.

The program airs in late fringe after KTSF’s 10 o’clock newscast and drew 4,000 viewers in its first outing. The station’s top show, its 7 p.m. newscast, which sometimes leads the market in the adults 25 to 54 demo, averages about 45,000 total viewers.

Also Read: Nielsen Signs Measurement Deal with Multi-Lingual KTSF

While news is important to the station, Schwartz is also looking for local niches it can fill. Some of those niches may achieve national reach with VUit.

When Schwartz arrived at KTSF a year and a half ago, it  was using Syncbak before VUit launched. The station used Syncbak as the platform for its app, which generates more than 20% of the station’s viewing for its local news and other programming. 

“I wanted to be able to use more of their services,” Schwartz said, including VUit.
“It’s a better platform that’s easier for people to use, not only in the market, but outside the market as well. And frankly, I also wanted to be able to engage their programmatic services.”

Also Read: Kevin Dunaway Joins VUit After 22 Years at WWTV

Kung Fu Theater was made available on VUit’s VOD platform on Friday. It will continue to be available on demand through February.

Without any promotion, Kung Fu Theater was watched in 14 markets last week. “It’s nice. We have viewers all over the country who are looking for something in Mandarin or Cantonese, and they find us on VUit,” Schwartz said.

So far, viewing is heaviest in urban markets with large Asian populations, including Los Angeles, Sacramento and New York. Viewing has also been strong in Canada, where VUit can be accessed.

KTSF is able to monetize those viewers. The station’s sales team is selling ads both locally and nationally. And what it can’t sell directly, Syncbak’s programmatic facility can, he said.

The national revenue will help support local programming efforts. “Obviously, we’re in business to make money but also to serve the community. And we’re trying to find interesting programming that’s fun and can continue to grow viewership.”

The station will start to promote Kung Fu Theater more, but Schwartz stops short of expecting it to become a national sensation. “This is an opportunity to get our voice out across the country. It’s almost like bonus viewing that I really wasn’t anticipating.”

VUit has brought big events and show produced by local stations to national audiences before. VUit streamed coverage of the 2021 Iditarod Sled Dog Race from Gray TV’s KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska, earlier this year. The telecast reached viewers from 178 markets

“Hyperlocal content is relevant for audiences beyond their broadcast markets and livestreaming is the future of local television,” said Jack Perry, CEO of Syncbak. “Kung-Fu Theater, which provides unique, culture rich, quality content, is a great example of what would be relevant to a national audience. We’re excited to help expand the reach and amplify the audience of this series.”

What else from KTSF might win up on VUit? 

Schwartz said KTSF has a call-in show with a Cantonese financial expert. It also just shot a 13-episode new season of a food and health show with San Francisco-based Chef Martin Yan, best known for his public TV show Yan Can Cook. The new episodes are scheduled to start to air Oct. 1.

VUit already streams other programming from KTSF, including Chinese New Year Parades, Talk Today, Kaitlyn's Beauty Journal, Travel with Thea, Martin Yan Seasoned with Laughter, Martin Yan's Sizzling Wok and Martin Yan's Gourmet Kitchen

Kevin Dunaway, who spent 22 years at TV stations in Traverse City, Mich., was named VP of affiliate relations and content development for VUit, the over-the-top streaming service featuring programming from local stations.

In his new position, Dunaway will educate local broadcast stations on the value of VUit, and help them create innovative OTT programming for the service. He’s also overseeing VUit’s in-house production efforts that serve as proof-of-concept for stations, and VUit’s “Studio 39” and live street camera in New York City.

At WWTV, Dunaway pushed the envelope while pushing content over the top, including broadcasting more than 10 hours of the I-500, a Michigan snowmobile race.

“We’ve been pursuing Kevin for a long time. We call him the king of OTT,” said Jack Perry, CEO of Syncbak, VUit’s parent company. 

“My direction to Kevin was you just go[t] to clone yourself and get out there and reach all the other broadcasters. He speaks their language, He’s been there, done that.”

VUit was launched in September, with more than 200 stations and an investment from Gray Television. 

Dunaway started as news producer at WWTV, owned by Heritage Broadcasting, moved up to news director in 2000 and general manager in 2016.

Dunaway said VUit will help stations take advantage of the creativity they have in their newsrooms and show them that putting programming on OTT is easy, there’s demand among consumers and that it gives stations an extra opportunity to sell commercials.

He’s moving from the station world to OTT because “this is a space that I decided I really want to be in because I believe there’s a great future there.” he said.

VUit wants participating stations to produce one or two live, original, straight-to-OTT events per month. The OTT programming creates a destination for hyperlocal programming that gives a station’s views something to watch before the switch to Netflix or some streaming service. 

After decades in the business, Dunaway already knows many fellow station execs. “I'm going to use some of those relationships and build others as we go on, to show them how they can monetize this great product,” he said.

Perry noted that VUit is also a good product for advertisers. "Because here’s a local broadcaster involved, our advertisers can feel comfortable that it’s a brand-safe environment," he said.

Perry declined to say how many people are watching VUit. But said the service's biggest stations are getting more than 20,000 viewers a day. When local programming is streamed live, 72% of the viewing comes from in-market. When it’s watched on demand, about 50% is in-market, Perry said.

VUit is now available on all major streaming platforms and devices, including mobile and desktop web, iOS and Android devices, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and AppleTV.

Free streaming platform VUit said it is adding a Washington Post Live channel to its lineup, effective Tuesday.

The channel will simulcast the Post’s live programming. VUit users will also be able to access past interviews on demand.

VUit was launched Sept. 1 by Syncbak and features programming from more than 200 local TV stations including those owned by Gray Television, which has invested in VUit.

“At its core, VUit’s mission is to provide access to meaningful news stories and cultural events and conversations from across the country to a wide audience. As a streaming partner of Washington Post Live, we are looking forward to introducing new viewers to incredible content created by one of the most well-respected global news brands,” said Syncbak CEO and founder Jack Perry said,

“Washington Post Live produces timely conversations on a wide range of topics that matter to people, whether it’s the latest on healthcare policy or a conversation with the stars of a new film,” added Kristine Coratti Kelly, GM of Washington Post Live. “We are excited to work with VUit to make this quality, robust programming available to their audience across the country.”

VUit said it expects to stream more than 3 million hours of live programming annually. It said its local content has already attracted viewers from hundreds of U.S. DMAs.

VUit, the streaming service featuring programming from hundreds of local TV stations, said it is planning to air a special that combines eSports stars with election night returns.

VUit eSports--Decision 2020 will start Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET and run all evening. It will be hosted by well-known gamers including Reaper, Geeb and Gamer Mom, and offer real time data and information from every state, non-biased commentary and behind the scenes activity.

Election night broadcasts--both national and local--tend to skew older and VUit said its programming is designed to be more fun for a younger demographic.

VUit said its eSports channel is no No. 2 on the OTT services curated channel lineup.

Launched by Syncbak and backed by Gray Television, VUit offers ad-supported streams from local stations and original programming. It expects to stream more than 3 million hours of live programming annually.

VUit, the over-the-top service featuring 200 local stations including those owned by Gray Television, launched a new Battleground States channel featuring campaign news from swing states around the country.

The new channel features news content from TV stations carried by VUit, including coverage from states including Iowa, Colorado, South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Related: 200 Stations Jump Into New Streaming Venture

“We’re in virtually all of the key states with the best on-the-ground reporting in our communities. Voters across the country will benefit from our front-line, political content that allows viewers to educate themselves on relevant issues. The ability for viewers to consume important local content happening elsewhere is at the core of what VUit is all about,” said Pat LaPlatney, co-CEO and president of Gray Television.

Related: Voces Presents 'Latino Vote: Dispatches from the Battleground' Oct. 6

VUit early launched Politics Uncut, another channel devoted to election news.

VUit is owned and managed by technology company Syncbak. Gray has made an investment in VUit and stations owned by other companies are participating in the service.

“In launching VUit, one of our key objectives was enabling viewers anywhere to connect with local towns and see what’s happening through the power of streaming,” said Syncbak CEO and founder Jack Perry. “We are at a watershed moment with the 2020 election, where just keeping up with the national news or your hometown news will not provide the viewer with the full picture. Our hope with the launch of Battleground States is that we fill in some of those blind spots.” 

With local TV ad revenue down about 30% in the second quarter, local stations are making a bid to get into streaming.

More than 200 stations owned by Gray Television, Meredith Corp., Cowles Media Co., Heritage Broadcasting Group and Morgan Murphy Media have signed up for something called VUit, which will aim to cash in on the increasingly crowed field of services offering ad supported free programming.

The approach to some degree copies what Sinclair Broadcast Group has done by creating Stirr, which offers the local news programming from its TV stations along with a range of other channels offering free content.

The stations participating in VUit have committed to produce and stream at least 12 live events a year. Those events can be sports, concerts, cultural event or news specials. It is expected to add up to 2,500 VUit originals per year.

VUit is available on iOS and Android devices, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV and other streaming platforms.

The platform has been put together by Syncbak and will use Syncbak’s dynamic ad insertion technology to place commercials in the streams. 

VUit will be run by Syncbak. Gray has made an undisclosed investment in the company.

In addition to the programming from the stations, VUit will also have automated themed channels composed of content from the stations, including a channel called Politics Uncut.

Syncbak's streaming service SBTV has acquired the streaming rights for the short film Backlash, starring Joel Murray, Eliza Murray and Molly Brown. The film was originally scheduled to debut online and at local film festivals, which were inevitably canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Backlash is the first original film being offered on Syncbak's platform, and is joined by other original shows such as Business First A.M. and food.curated.

Backlash takes place in the middle of winter, set in the Midwest in 1987. An entire family has been left for dead and will explore their "demise, environmental themes and the karmic cycle of retribution." The film was directed and written by Max Moore and Jonathan Graf and produced by Mia Reggi.

“The moment we saw Backlash we knew we wanted to carry it on SBTV. In addition to great local programming, viewers can watch live and on-demand news from over 200 local stations across the nation, anywhere they are from any device," said Jack Perry, CEO of Syncbak. "It has been incredibly meaningful to bring this film to SBTV and support work that might not otherwise have had the opportunity to be seen by as many viewers nationally. We will continue to look for other festival and cultural programming that furthers our vision of giving national attention to hyperlocal events and local artists’ works.”

“I was thrilled when Syncbak reached out to us. Carriage of our film on SBTV allows us to reach an audience we otherwise would not have had an opportunity to reach. We’re looking forward to carrying more of our locally produced films on the platform.” said Max Moore, director of Backlash.

SBTV is backed by ViacomCBS, Gray Television, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Consumer Technology Association. It is available on the app, Apple TV, Fire TV and Roku.  

Syncbak this week pushed forward with the launch of SBTV, a free, ad-based OTT service that enables local broadcasters to distribute their live feeds and on-demand programming around the U.S. on multiple devices.

Syncbak said Gray Television is the first major station group to offer live, ad-based channels across all markets.

Syncbak formally introduced SBTV on Wednesday (May 16) at an inaugural “TechFronts” event in New York focused on the company’s dynamic ad insertion technology, adSync, and topics centered on the larger internet-driven TV syndication market.

SBTV builds on Syncbak’s other work focused on streaming live, in-market TV signals to internet connected devices for services such as CBS All Access (CBS is one of Syncbak’s financial backers), as well as virtual MVPDs such as PlayStation Vue, fuboTV and Hulu (for its new live TV service).

Prior to the debut of SBTV, SimpleSync, Syncbak’s streaming platform, was being used to power more than 7.3 million hours of live TV programming on an annual basis, about triple the 2.5 million hours it was ingesting the year prior, company CEO and founder Jack Perry said in an interview at the recent NAB Show in Las Vegas.

RELATED: Syncbak Syncs With Virtual MVPDs

This week, Syncbak said it demonstrated direct-to-OTT live streams with dynamic ad insertion to viewers across the U.S. in all 210 DMAs via the SBTV app (for iOS and Android) and on the web at Syncbak.TV.

With SBTV, Syncbak is giving local TV stations a way to reach beyond their local markets with live feeds and on-demand content for shows, including news broadcasts, locally-produced programs, syndicated fare, and other content for which they have rights to distribute on a broader basis.

Alongside the baseline SimpleSync platform, SBTV is also underpinned by a DAI system called adSync, and a Cloud Syndication Marketplace that enables partners to syndicate and license their programming for OTT delivery (live, VOD, or both) via local TV stations that are on board with SBTV.

Gray Television, for example, is delivering MomsEveryday via OTT to its own 57 markets as well as to stations in another 154 DMAs via SBTV. Syncbak said about a dozen shows, each with a handful of seasons (including food, a James Beard-award winning series food. Curated, a show airing in New York City) have helped to seed its Cloud Syndication Marketplace.

Northwest Broadcasting also touted its support for SBTV. “SBTV gives our stations the tools we need to deliver our own, unique, hyperlocal OTT channels,” Brian Brady, CEO of Northwest Broadcasting, said in a statement. 

Syncbak, the broadcaster-backed company that specializes in streaming live, in-market broadcast TV signals on connected devices, said its streaming platform, SimpleSync, now powers 2.5 million hours of live TV programming on an annual basis.

It said its technology now covers 90% of U.S. homes, and is currently ingesting more than 400 TV stations across 161 markets that represent 51 broadcast groups, and all major broadcast networks, including CBS, ABC, FOX, NBC and the CW. CBS All Access, the network's standalone subscription service that supports live local feeds (represented in the image), are among the apps that rely on Syncbak's technology.

Syncbak's platform, which aims to simplify the workflow for live OTT feeds using a multiplatform, cloud-based architecture, has also been integrated with Nielsen in a way that measures local audiences on connected platforms.

RELATED: Syncbak Syncs Up With Nielsen

Syncbak said the milestone shows that its platform can scale as virtual MVPDs and other forms of online video distributors continue to pursue services that can support live local TV feeds over-the-top.

“Gray is 100% ready to provide our signals to any network app, OVD or vMVPD,” Jason Effinger, chief digital and technology officer, at Gray Television said, noting that SimpleSync gets Gray’s signals to the cloud in one step.

Syncbak’s strategic investors include the National Association of Broadcasters, the Consumer Technology Association, CBS, Gray Television, Morgan Murphy Media and Northwest Television.

Syncbak, the CBS-backed startup that delivers live, in-market broadcast TV on mobile devices, has become the first to integrate a new platform from Nielsen that measures local audiences on a range of connected devices.

Nielsen said Syncbak has successfully tied in its proprietary Software Development Kit for its portfolio of apps.

Nielsen said the SDK will allow clients in local markets, who are encoding with Nielsen Watermarks, to measure audiences across mobile platforms, and later this year include that viewing in their television ratings when streaming the same program and same advertising as the live television program.

Nielsen noted that its mobile SDK will initially be integrated for the iOS platform, enabling Syncbak to have Nielsen measurement capabilities hard-coded into the app.

Syncbak and Nielsen will next work on integration on the Android platform.

Syncbak said it has over 150 television stations across the U.S. using their platform today. Its list of live markets includes San Diego and San Francisco; Colorado Springs; Boston; Miami; Lansing, Mich.; Topeka, Kan.; and Binghamton, N.Y., among others.

The integration announcement follows earlier work between the companies. Last year, Nielsen announced that Syncbak had completed a two-week tech trial with four CBS-owned TV stations in New York and Los Angeles. Nielsen unveiled its mobile-pointing SDK last October.

Working in tandem with TV partners, Syncbak’s platform replicates over-the-air broadcasts and delivers those simulcasts over the Internet and via cellular networks to select Android- and iOS-powered tablets and smartphones. Syncbak’s system uses a specialized device deployed at the station that intercepts the signal before transcoding and packaging those streams for delivery.

Syncbak’s work with Nielsen comes as U.S. broadcasters continue to battle it out in the courts with Aereo, a startup that uses an array of tiny antennas to capture over-the-air digital broadcast signals, and then encodes them into a format that can be delivered to subscribers over the Internet. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on August 22.

“Our goal is to take live broadcast television over the Internet in ways that make money and increase viewing,” said Syncbak founder and CEO Jack Perry, in a statement. “By integrating Nielsen’s technology, we support an economy that has served broadcasters and advertisers for decades and help eliminate risks and hurdles that would slow adoption of Internet TV, which we see as vital to the future of television. We’re thrilled to be part of this important step.”

In addition to CBS, the National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association also have invested in Syncbak.