Vitec Videocom to Acquire Autocue

BURY ST. EDMUNDS & SURREY, ENGLAND—Vitec Videocom, an operating division within the Vitec Group, has announced that it reached a conditional agreement to acquire Autocue, a U.K.-based company that has been developing teleprompting technology for broadcasters since 1955. The acquisition adds a second prompting company to Vitec’s roster of camera support companies, after Vitec’s acquisition of competitor Autoscript in 2006. In 2012, Vitec Videocom also launched another prompting company “You Prompt,” targeting the PEG market.

Autocue has been owned by Root Capital, a London-based venture capital firm in the technology sector, since 2005. In 2010 it announced it was investing more than $1 million in Autocue, which resulted in Autocue adding a line of newsroom servers to its product lineup. Autocue also serves as a “key channel” for lighting and other camera support equipment. The BBC has been a longtime Autocue customer, which also counts NBC and CNN among its other notabale users.

In addition to Autoscript, other companies in Vitec Videocom’s group include Anton/Bauer, Litepanels, OConnor, Petrol Bags, Sachtler, Vinten, Vinten Radamec, TCS, Bexel, Camera Corps and Teradek, which it acquired in the fall of 2013.

The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

Tom Butts

Tom has covered the broadcast technology market for the past 25 years, including three years handling member communications for the National Association of Broadcasters followed by a year as editor of Video Technology News and DTV Business executive newsletters for Phillips Publishing. In 1999 he launched digitalbroadcasting.com for internet B2B portal Verticalnet. He is also a charter member of the CTA's Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. Since 2001, he has been editor-in-chief of TV Tech (www.tvtech.com), the leading source of news and information on broadcast and related media technology and is a frequent contributor and moderator to the brand’s Tech Leadership events.