Backlight and Wurl Partner to Make Streaming Distribution More Seamless and Efficient

Partnership Enables API-first FAST programming with live event insertion across Wurl’s Global Platform

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Global media and entertainment technology company, Backlight, today announced that it has partnered with Wurl to provide superior programming, CMS, and OTT management, distribution, and monetization capabilities for large and mid-market video publishers in the FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming TV) and vMVPD (Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributor) ecosystem. Backlight and Wurl’s combined strengths offer a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for content publishers delivering a seamless, profitable, and more efficient workflow.

"Our mission has always been to empower video publishers to maximize their content's reach and revenue potential across the global streaming ecosystem,” said Dave Bernath, VP of Sales and Partnerships, Americas at Wurl. “This partnership combines our robust distribution and monetization capabilities with Backlight's comprehensive content management, as well as live and real-time scheduling technologies.”

The Backlight and Wurl partnership offers several benefits for content publishers and helps to solve key pain points. Backlight’s comprehensive end-to-end technology platform provides an extensive suite of media content solutions needed for advanced content management and distribution—encompassing CMS, Media Asset Management, Live Clipping, and Editing. However, in today’s fragmented landscape, optimizing ad monetization and increasing engagement across platforms is challenging. Wurl solves for this with Global FAST Pass, which can facilitate the distribution of FAST channels to 45+ streamers globally. The company’s AdPool solution also helps to fill inventory with premium advertisers, while ContentDiscovery works to target relevant audiences most likely to convert to loyal viewers.

Backlight brings comprehensive offerings including the advanced channel creation and management capabilities of Zype Playout to the partnership:

• Zype Playout API-first approach facilitates seamless integration and media orchestration by enabling customers with real-time channel control and monitoring, so they have flexibility for last-second scheduling changes, including full support for live event inserts and SCTE-35 ad marker insertion.
• Zype Playout solution offers real-time channel control enabling publishers to create and manage channels in a self-service manner. It supports last-second playlist changes and re-ordering, fully productizing channel control and content scheduling.
• Live production - including advanced graphics generation as well as automated SCTE-35 marker detection from 3^rd-party hosted streams - in combination with Backlight’s Wildmoka product line.
• Storage, collaboration, review of media assets in combination with Backlight’s iconik product line.

Learn more about Zype Playout here.

About Backlight

Backlight is a global media technology company that is dramatically improving every stage of the video and entertainment content lifecycle—from creation through monetization—with its award-winning, cloud-native SaaS products. Video-forward organizations partner with Backlight to solve their mission-critical business and operational challenges. Backlight’s product lines—iconik, cineSync, ftrack, celtx, Gem, Clip Studio (formerly Wildmoka) and Zype—provide secure and efficient media management, narrative design, production tracking, creative collaboration, OTT, monetization and hyper-distribution. Backlight launched in 2021 and is backed by $200M in funding from growth-equity partner PSG.

For more information visit backlight.co.

About Wurl

Wurl is a leader in the Connected TV industry, helping content companies, streamers, and advertisers reach millions of viewers worldwide. The company’s data-driven technologies enable publishers, streamers, and advertisers to maximize revenues, grow CTV viewership, and strengthen brand value. Wurl is owned by AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP). For more information, visit www.wurl.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.