Shazam beats cable ITV platforms to the plate with Major League Baseball deal

Shazam said it struck a deal with MLB Advanced Media which will allow baseball fans watching games on TV to receive interactive content on their smartphones and tablet computers.

Shazam's deal with MLB will deliver interactive content to baseball fans.

Viewers watching the Major League Baseball playoffs and World Series will be able to access video highlights and receive live scores and statistics on their mobile phones and tablets. TBS and Fox are producing playoff games, with TBS's coverage of wildcard playoff games featuring the Baltimore Orioles competing against the Texas Rangers, and the Atlanta Braves against the St. Louis Cardinals, beginning tonight.

The Shazam – MLB deal is the latest example of content owners focusing on using mobile phones and tablets to deliver interactive programming to viewers, rather than developing applications for interactive TV platforms developed by Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and other cable MSOs. While cable MSOs have invested in deploying an EBIF platform that could allow programmers to deliver interactive programming that subscribers could access with a remote control that is similar to the content MLB is delivering with Shazam, few networks and advertisers have embraced the technology.

MLB is the first professional sports league that has partnered with Shazam, which has developed automatic content recognition (ACR) technology that can be used to deliver programming and advertising to mobile devices that is synchronized with video that a viewer is watching on TV. But Shazam has already made its mark in sports programming. During NBC's coverage of Super Bowl XLVI in February, about one-third of the commercials offered viewers the option to receive bonus content on mobile phones and tablets that had the Shazam app installed.

Cable operators are also beginning to experiment with Shazam. Comcast ran a demo at The Cable Show in May that showed how it could let subscribers watching music videos on networks such as MTV search for related content in its video-on-demand library by pressing a button on the remote control for its X1 digital video service.

For more:
- see the release

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