ChyronHego Corporation

ChyronHego Corporation, formerly Chyron Corporation, is a technology company headquartered in Melville, New York. The company specializes in software and services for broadcast content creation, content management, playout, and real-time data visualization for the television industry including live news, weather, and sports production. ChyronHego was formed through the merger of Chyron Corporation and Hego AB in 2013.

History[edit]

Early Chyron history[edit]

Chyron was an early-stage developer of electronic paint telestrator and character generator systems. The company was originally incorporated as Systems Resource Corporation, a spin-off from computer company Digitronics, in early 1970. At this time, the company entered the electronic text field with a product for airport flight schedule displays. Chyron’s first character generator was the Chiron I, a message storage front-end for an A.B. Dick dot-matrix display system that was first sold to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. The system began to be adopted by television stations, which used its capabilities to record and retrieve lower thirds and full-page text displays for news departments as an alternative to art cards, slides, or scrolling black felt.

Prior to the availability of 8-inch floppy disk drives for OEM applications, the company built its own multi-track magnetic storage device, the VidiLoop, based on a two-foot loop of computer tape in a thick, clear plastic housing. On the Chiron I, the device was used solely for title storage. It was also used on a few early Chiron IIs, but due to increased storage requirements was replaced by Shugart SA901 8" floppy drives as soon as they were available.

The Chiron II, designed specifically for television applications, first appeared in March 1971 and shipped to KYW-TV for a computer graphics project that featured up to six loadable fonts (typefaces) with very high video resolution for the time.

The Chiron III was introduced in 1973, following the merger of Systems Resource Corporation with Computer Exchange. The new company made its initial public offering that year under the name Chyron Telesystems, and later changed its name to Chyron Corporation.

The Chyron IV was first shipped in 1977 and was updated to the 4100 in 1979. Chyron's first telestrator, a precursor to the company’s present-day Paint telestration and analysis tool, also appeared in 1979. That same year, Chyron shipped its new RGU solution, originally aimed at the remote broadcast market but mostly used by television stations. The RGU was the first unit to incorporate a 16-bit mini-computer known as the DataMate-70, whose code base drove the Chyron IV and 4100 series systems that were in widespread use by the mobile sports graphics industry from the late 1970s through most of the 1980s.

Chyron’s VP-1 series of character generators shipped in 1980, followed by the VP-2 series the next year, and the Scribe in 1984. The company’s first iNFiNiT! character generator shipped in late 1989, followed by the MAX!> and MAXINE!. The iNFiNiT! family of systems introduced greater performance and real-time object animation capabilities for live character generation.

The Duet product line emerged in November 1998. Duet combined a dual hardware architecture and Chyron’s real-time video hardware, designed specifically for graphics, into a single system for text and pictures.

Chyron launched Chyron Online with the acquisition of Axis Graphics, a Web-based service that enables customers to create broadcast-quality graphics without the need for specialized hardware or software. Axis supports graphics for maps, weather, charts and quotes, refreshing data as new information is provided via the Internet and giving news graphic production staff direct access to images as they become available through news services.

Merger With Hego AB[edit]

On May 23, 2013, Chyron completed a merger with Swedish company Hego AB and its subsidiaries through a cash and stock-for-stock transaction. The combined company continued to trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol "CHYR." Following the transaction, Hego AB shareholders owned approximately 40 percent of the combined company, and Chyron shareholders own approximately 60 percent. The combined company was rebranded as ChyronHego.

Hego was founded in 1969 by Mucki Heyman and Göran Otterström to develop electronic event timing systems for sports. In 1972 Hego and Swedish broadcaster NRK delivered one of the world’s first uses of a running clock on live television. Hego became a major player in the field of timing and results services for large events, including numerous high-profile international sports events.

From the 1990s on, Hego evolved into a provider of all types of television graphics primarily to European broadcasters. In 2004 Hego acquired Czech company AKI Sport, a developer of real-time 3D and virtual graphics rendering solutions for sports broadcasting. Also in 2004, Hego launched the TRACAB sports tracking system that is today a foundational component in ChyronHego’s product offering for sports broadcasters, leagues and federations.

The Chyron and Hego product lines are complementary with little overlap. Hego's solutions predominantly address the needs of live sports production with product categories such as augmented reality and virtual product placement, telestration, and production services offerings based around its proprietary image and player tracking solutions. For its part, Chyron has recently been more focused on graphics solutions for live and near-live news production workflows.

Acquisition of ZXY and WeatherOne[edit]

In July 2014, ChyronHego finalized the acquisition of Norwegian companies ZXY Sport Tracking AS and WeatherOne.

As an extension of ChyronHego’s TRACAB player tracking system, the ZXY transponder-based tracking technology detects the real-time position of all objects within a stadium or training facility in real-time. Players wear a data chip that transmits positions and other essential data such as heart rates, speeds and the impact from collisions. The system has been used in soccer, American football, and ice hockey, and has been adapted for many other indoor and outdoor sports.

Through the WeatherOne acquisition, ChyronHego added the Metacast weather graphics presentation software to its product family. Serving the broadcast and digital media sectors, Metacast is a live-to-air weather graphics and broadcast production system that includes the management of weather and climate data.

Merger With Vector Capital[edit]

In November 2014, ChyronHego entered into a definitive merger agreement with affiliates of Vector Capital under which an affiliate of Vector acquired all of the outstanding shares of ChyronHego common stock. ChyronHego agreed to be taken private by Vector Capital in an all-cash deal that valued ChyronHego at an equity value of approximately $114M or $2.82 per share.

Acquisitions of VidiGo and Newsroom Solutions[edit]

In 2015, ChyronHego acquired VidiGo, a Dutch provider of IT-based software solutions for live broadcast production workflows. VidiGo provides a suite of tools for the creation and management of broadcast-quality video content. The acquisition of VidiGo, together with its products and core competencies in production automation, was seen as an important step in ChyronHego’s growth-by-acquisition strategy.

Later in 2015, ChyronHego announced the acquisition of Newsroom Solutions, a provider of fully integrated software, hardware, and services for local and network cable and television stations. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Newsroom Solutions offers a suite of content and brand management solutions for deploying data-driven news ticker graphics such as severe weather alerting, school closures, and election reporting.

Customers[edit]

Chyron has an installed base of several thousand broadcasters in the U.S. and globally who are using the company’s graphics products. These include ABC, Fox, NBC, ESPN, Turner Entertainment Networks, The Golf Channel, Home Shopping Network, Korean Broadcasting, Germany's BR and NDR networks, Sky Sports News, and the BBC, plus local stations in every U.S. television market.

Products[edit]

ChyronHego’s products are used by broadcasters to create, manipulate, store, play back, and manage content including 2D/3D text, logos, graphics, animations, and video stills/clips. The products include hosted services for graphics creation and order management, on-air graphics systems, channel branding, weather graphics, graphics asset management, clip servers, social media and second screen applications, touchscreen graphics, telestration, virtual graphics, and player tracking.

ChyronHego’s products include Lyric Pro and Lyric64, Paint, CAMIO, and the TRACAB Image Tracking System, amongst others.

Locations[edit]

ChyronHego’s corporate headquarters is in Melville, New York, with offices in Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

TERMINOLOGY

In the United States the graphics (e.g., lower thirds) generated by character generators are sometimes referred to as Chyrons, whether or not the equipment is made by ChyronHego. This is a type of genericized trademark.

References[edit]

ChyronHego Acquires Vidigo, TV Technology, Aug. 10, 2015.
ChyronHego Acquires Newsroom Solutions, Broadcasting and Cable, Sept. 10, 2015.
Graphics Giant ChyronHego to be Acquired by Vector Capital, Sports Video Group, November 17, 2014.
Chyron’s Hego Acquisition Shifts Graphics Market on Both Sides of the Pond, Sports Video Group, March 12, 2013.

External links[edit]

Official website

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