GAC Media Selects Globecast’s Market-Leading Cloud-Based Playout and Satellite Distribution Services

January 12th, 2022

Globecast has announced that GAC Media, home to GAC Family and GAC Living channels, has chosen its market-leading cloud playout services, along with satellite distribution, to support both networks.

GAC Family and GAC Living launched in September 2021 as new destinations for family-friendly programming. GAC Family (formerly Great American Country) debuted under the tagline “Stories Well Told” and features family-friendly, holiday movies and series that celebrate American culture, lifestyle and heritage. GAC Living (formerly RIDE TV) is the unscripted companion to GAC Family that celebrates Great American family-friendly traditions every day and every season. Prior to rebranding as GAC Living, RIDE TV enlisted Globecast’s services to manage its playout and satellite distribution.

The agreement includes storage controlled by automation with video and audio monitoring facilities, terrestrial interconnect, satellite transmission, and encoding for streaming services. Both channels are being broadcast in HD and 24/7 monitoring is taking place at Globecast’s Culver City location.

Globecast is currently receiving content for both channels via internal cloud and accelerated data transport technology with GAC Media schedules sent via the same technology. All content received by Globecast is quality control checked and tightly monitored to ensure it is technically correct. Globecast is uplinking the GAC Living channel to the SES-1 satellite in MPEG-4 HD format and is compressing the GAC Family channel’s signal for IP transport via fiber. Graphics such as logos and advanced branding are stored in the cloud and controlled via automation.

Kevin Brown, Chief Information Officer at GAC Media, said, “GAC Media is pleased to be expanding our partnership with Globecast, who consistently provides industry leading service and support. The company’s cloud playout capabilities allowed GAC to get two all-new channels to air quickly and efficiently and will provide us with great flexibility going forward.”

Lou DiMauro, Vice President of Sales, East Coast, at Globecast Americas, said, “GAC Media’s goal is to provide high-quality content that supports both growing viewer engagement and advertiser growth, and we’ve made it our mission to help GAC Media achieve that goal. We’ve spent a great deal of time and effort creating our cloud playout service, using our years of expertise across the broadcast and wider media supply chain space to create an acquisition, origination and delivery ecosystem.”