Future announces Industry Innovator Award Recipients
Fred Fourcher has been instrumental in shaping the broadcasting industry since 1987 when he founded Miralite which later became Bitcentral, Inc. In 2000, the company built a nationwide news distribution network for CBS Newspath and another one for NBC News Channel in 2003. In 2005 Bitcentral entered the news production system business and pioneered the first large-scale internet-based news aggregation and sharing platform called Oasis™ which is now used by over 1,200 news organizations worldwide and distributes over 40,000 stories per day. Fred Fourcher is a recognized thought leader in the industry who received an Emmy in 2017 for Bitcentral’s innovative use of the MOS Protocol in our news systems.
Mr. Fourcher’ s vision focused on designing efficient media workflow solutions has resulted in Bitcentral having more news production systems in TV stations than any competitors in the U.S. Currently, Mr. Fourcher is focusing on Bitcentral’s revolutionary Linear on Demand™ streaming platform called FUEL™ which is transforming the broadcast industry from appointment viewing to delivering a personalized viewing experience on any platform.
With his depth of understanding and experience in all things broadcast, Fourcher has lived through all the stages, from Beta Tapes to Video Servers, IP Video and Cloud-based storage and playout and continues to work on providing broadcasters, content owners and creators with an easy to deploy digital workflow solution that affords them the right tools to take full advantage of untapped digital revenue opportunities.
His big “aha moment” came when visiting client TV stations and realizing how many put up a slate when they were not “in the news” or during an ad break which is not a great way to endear an online audience to keep watching.
It was at this point that Fourcher started focusing on how to make it simple for TV stations and content providers to sell, place and generate advertising revenue on digital platforms.
“Our customers are only achieving 20% of the revenue they could from their online platforms. They need a way to supplement the declining advertising revenue from traditional TV with new revenue generated from their digital platforms, i.e., they want to make their existing content easily available on digital (OTT, web, apps, mobile devices, etc.) platforms with one easy and simple-to-deploy workflow that can monetize their online content on all devices,” explained Fourcher.
FUEL™ made its debut at this year’s NAB and received the BEST OF SHOW Award in recognition of its contribution to the industry with this transformative solution that provides TV stations the ability to create personalized channels in a cloud-based environment while automatically filling breaks with server-side or programmatic ads to monetize digital content online with a day’s notice. FUEL’s personalized LOD streaming provides the ultimate viewing experience because it offers people the ability to watch a newscast or program from the start whenever they access it, coupled with stories or content personalized to each viewer.
Schedule a demo today: https://bitcentral.com/product/fuel/