Film Production Shop Technicolor, PRN’s Old Owner, In Deep Peril Of Shutting Doors

February 24, 2025 by Dave Haynes

The big media production services company that at one point was active in digital signage and early-days retail media via PRN appears to be in financial hole so deep that it may not be able to escape.

The French firm Technicolor Group has in recent days been alerting customers and employees that it is in serious peril of having to completely shut down operations.

A formal notice reads:

“Technicolor has been facing severe financial challenges. Despite exhaustive efforts — including restructuring initiatives, discussions with potential investors, and exploring acquisition opportunities — we have been unable to secure a viable path forward. Unfortunately, this leaves us with no alternative but to acknowledge that the Company may be forced to foreclose.” Another portion reads, “If no viable solution is found, we may be required to cease our U.S. operations as early as Monday, February 24, 2025.”

That would affect the jobs of thousands of visual effects workers, including the people behind animated Disney films.

The relevance of this to digital signage circles traces back to the 1990s, and then a few times since, most recently when STRATACACHE founder Chris Riegel picked up PRN for fire sale pricing in mid 2015.

PRN started as Premier Retail Networks way back in 1992, first doing music previews and then starting a massive network of TVs hanging from Walmart ceilings around the U.S. In 2005, the French consumer electronics giant Thomson spent a mid-wobbling $285 million to buy PRN. By early 2009, in the midst of the recession, Thomson said PRN was for sale, but later pulled it off the table. Thomson then turned into Technicolor in a re-branding exercise, and the company has been run from France since then.

In 2012, PRN was re-launched as IZ-ON Media, and was in Technicolor’s Consumer Ventures Group. Then Riegel took it off Technicolor’s hands for $1.65 million, and went back to the PRN brand.

PRN is still active today and a cornerstone of Riegel’s move into retail media networks.