Atlanta TV Group is Backchannelmedia’s First Paying Customer

Boston’s Backchannelmedia, whose “clickable TV” system embeds links in broadcast TV signals that consumers can activate with their remote controls to receive information about a program or a product via e-mail, said today that Gray Television (NYSE: [[ticker:GTN]]) of Atlanta will roll out the Backchannelmedia system to its 36 local broadcast stations.

That brings the total number of stations participating in Backchannelmedia’s system to 68 (including New England stations WCVB, WJAR, WTNH, and WCTX), covering more than a sixth of all U.S. broadcast viewers.

“This is our first paying contract for clickable TV—a huge milestone for us,” says Backchannelmedia marketing director Eric Martin. “The market trials continue up here in the Northeast but the fact that a broadcast group is on the record and willing to pay for it demonstrates that it has actual monetary value to broadcasters.”

We’ve profiled Backchannelmedia here and here.

Author: Wade Roush

Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco. Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.) I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia. I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats. My personal site: waderoush.com My social media coordinates: Twitter: @wroush Facebook: facebook.com/wade.roush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/waderoush Google+ : google.com/+WadeRoush YouTube: youtube.com/wroush1967 Flickr: flickr.com/photos/wroush/ Pinterest: pinterest.com/waderoush/