Amscreen Sells Media Business To The Media Business It Bought

August 12, 2015 by Dave Haynes

amscreenunitThe UK digital signage firm Amscreen has decided to formally sell off its media division to its longtime media sales partner DigiCom, so that Amscreen can focus on software and hardware.

DigiCom Out of Home takes ownership of the media sales and marketing activities for some 3,500 UK digital roadside and healthcare networks running with Amscreen’s LCD/LED screen combos.

Amscreen will continue to provide the hardware and software solutions, and run operations of the signage networks, including monitoring, technical support and maintenance.

“This move will allow us to concentrate on our core competencies of hardware and software development,” says Simon Sugar, Amscreen’s CEO, “whilst the media operation will benefit from (DigiCom head) Tom Goddard’s considerable experience in the OOH environment. We are delighted that we shall continue to work in a truly symbiotic fashion with Tom, and believe that the media team will benefit significantly from his guidance and leadership.”

This is interesting because Amscreen, through a combination of manufacturing savvy, business ties and determination, has in the past decade built out a well-established and successful digital out of home network, with a product that a lot of people (me definitely included) thought wouldn’t work.

But it has.

The deal is a bit confusing, in that Amscreen at one point acquired essentially the same company when it was called Digicom, with a lower case c. That was a shares deal and Goddard, a longtime out of home media veteran, then became executive vice chairman of Amscreen. So the companies remain joined at the hip, by the looks of it.

Amscreen has a content management platform, video analytics service and ad serving software, as well as a range of different displays, including newer ones that don’t have that big LED ticker thing.

 

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