Cinedigm is continuing to shed divisions, as part of an effort to streamline the company under newly-minted Chief Executive Officer Chris McGurk.
The company announced Thursday that it will get out of the advertising game, by selling its UniqueScreen Media division to cinema advertising company Screenvision.
As part of the sale, Screenvision has signed a multi-year partnership with Cinedigam to find sponsors for its alternative content business.
The companies did not disclose the sale price for UniqueScreen Media.
Along with its software and digital screen deployments, Cinedigm is betting its future on providing exhibitors with less traditional programming options such as World Cup games and Phish concerts.
“We’re shedding a non-core asset, but in a way that augments and enhances our central business,” Chris McGurk, CEO of Cinedigm, told TheWrap. “We think we can become the market leader in alternative content distribution.”
McGurk said that UniqueScreen Media was modestly profitable, but that he believed that the market was too saturated for it to grow substantially under Cinedigm's banner.
The move comes on the heels of Cinedigm’s sale of its physical and electronic distribution business last month to Technicolor. As with the Screenvision pact, the Technicolor sale paved the way for future partnerships to develop software.
With the addition of UniqueScreen Media, Screenvision's overall national cinema advertising network grows to 15,266 screens, and its digital footprint will expand to 10,622 screens.
Screenvision CEO Travis Reid said that the company was particularly excited to acquire UniqueScreen Media because it had a strong track record in local advertising. Screenvision, Reid said, was more adept at attracting national ads.
“It’s an opportunity to expand our advertising business, while getting alternative content to a tipping point where it becomes mainstream for distributors,” Reid said.
