Liberty Livewire (Santa Monica, Calif.) will change its corporatename to Ascent Media Group on Wednesday, November 20, 2002. As aresult, effective that same day, the company’s NASDAQ ticker symbol forits Class-A common stock will change from LWIRA to AMGIA.
Ascent Media Group provides a wealth of services to content ownersin post-production, media-asset management and content distributionthat is available through the company’s three service segments: AscentMedia Creative Services (formerly Liberty Livewire Pictures), AscentMedia Network Services (formerly Liberty Livewire Networks) and AscentMedia-Management Services (formerly Liberty Livewire Media). Among themyriad services offered within the company are telecine, online andoffline editing, visual effects, foreign-language dubbing, soundeditorial, sound mixing, digital-asset management, encoding, uplinkservices, distribution to foreign broadcast, Internet delivery, systemintegration and video-on-demand. These services are offered on a globalbasis through over 100 facilities in five countries, provided by morethan 3,700 associates.
The re-naming of Liberty Livewire to Ascent Media Group is based ona strategic effort that began two years ago with the establishment ofLiberty Livewire in June 2000. Liberty Livewire was formed through aseries of strategic acquisitions that resulted in the largest globalaggregation of media services companies providing post-production,media-asset management and content-distribution services. The acquiredbusinesses include Company 3, R!OT, Method, Rushes, Encore, Level 3Post, Soundelux, Todd-AO, POP Sound, Digital Image, 4MC, Audio+VideoInternational, Group W Network Services, Waterfront Communications,A.F. Associates and Asia Broadcast Center.
“Ascent Media Group is changing the face of the media servicesbusiness through the aggregation and integration of services across thecontent creation, management and distribution segments, creating anend-to-end media services platform,” said Bill Fitzgerald, Ascent MediaGroup’s chairman and CEO. “Ascent Media Group is also investingextensively in the development of next-generation technology platformsand service applications such as video-on-demand, interactivetelevision and store-and-forward technology. In doing so, the companyis setting the stage for future development, while positioning itselfto support new facets of content creation, management anddistribution.”
Although most of Liberty Livewire’s companies will adopt the newAscent Media Group identity, a select number of legacy brands willpreserve their operating names, including POP Sound, R!OT Santa Monica,R!OT Manhattan, R!OT Atlanta, FilmCore Editorial (Santa Monica),FilmCore Editorial (San Francisco), FilmCore Distribution (Hollywood),FilmCore Distribution (San Francisco), Company 3, Company 3 New York,Method, Blink Digital, A.F. Associates Inc. and Video Rentals Inc. Therationale for this decision is because many clients who enlistpost-production services seek out the highest level of creative talentto service their projects and often prefer the attributes afforded by a”boutique” brand.
The Ascent Media name will be adopted by the company’s UK and Asiaoperations in the first quarter of 2003.
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