Thomson Broadcast is a French electronics manufacturer which designs, produces, deploys and services television and medium-wave radio transmission systems.

History

Thomson Broadcast is a legacy of the former Thomson Group, which first transmitted television programs on July 10, 1937 from the

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. Thomson Group led to the creation of two companies in 1995: Thomson-CSF, specializing in defense and Thomson Multimedia (TMM), specializing in electronic consumer goods. Thomson Multimedia acquired the DVD manufacturer Technicolor and

Grass Valley A grass valley (also vega and valle) is a meadow located within a forested and relatively small drainage basin such as a headwater. Grass valleys are common in North America, where they are created and maintained principally by the work of be ...

, a company focusing on cameras and video technology, in 2000 and 2001. This reinforced a strategy to produce and sell professional equipment (instead of consumer goods) which was fully implemented in 2005, when Thomson acquired Thales Broadcast & Multimedia. From 2000 to 2008, Thomson/Thales Broadcast & Multimedia reinforced its position in transmission deployment. In 2000, Thales Multimedia Multimedia introduced two one-megawatt longwave transmitters in Roumoules, France, to broadcast Radio Monte Carlo from Great Britain to North Africa. In 2008, the

National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) is an American professional service organization founded in 1955 for "the advancement of the arts and sciences of television and the promotion of creative leadership for artistic, ed ...

(NATAS) gave a

Technology and Engineering Emmy Award The Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, or Technology and Engineering Emmys, are one of two sets of Emmy Awards that are presented for outstanding achievement in engineering development in the television industry. The Technology and Engineer ...

for outstanding achievement in technical or engineering development in the "Monitoring for compliance standards for ATSC & DVB transport streams" category to Thomson, Pixelmetrix, Tektronix and

Rohde & Schwarz Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG (, ) is an international electronics group specializing in the fields of electronic test equipment, broadcast & media, cybersecurity, radiomonitoring and radiolocation, and radiocommunication. The company provides p ...

. That year, All India Radio ordered a one-megawatt S7HP medium-wave transmitter from Thomson. In 2009, Thomson experienced serious financial difficulty. The following year, Thomson Grass Valley announced the sale of its radio and television transmission activities to a German private equity firm and was renamed Technicolor. The Arelis Group acquired Thomson Broadcast's transmission portfolio, including its radio and television transmitter lines, in December 2012. Based on the Arelis Group's manufacturing capability, Thomson Broadcast received a contract to deploy next stage transmission DTT (

digital terrestrial television Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consume ...

) transmitters to Israel. By 2013, its

asset turnover Asset turnover (ATO), total asset turnover, or asset turns is a financial ratio that measures the efficiency of a company's use of its assets in generating sales revenue or sales income to the company. Asset turnover is considered to be an Activity ...

was said to have increased by 20 percent; this growth led to a global increase of 440 percent from 2012 to 2015. The

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digital transition was achieved with a Thomson Broadcast transmission

turnkey A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...

system in 2015, and the company competed in other African projects against the Chinese media company

StarTimes StarTimes is a Chinese electronics and media company with strong presence in Sub-Saharan Africa. StarTimes offers digital terrestrial television and satellite television services to consumers, and provides technologies to countries and broadc ...

. Proposing DTT system and medium-wave radio transmission systems around the world, Thomson Broadcast is involved in

Digital Video Broadcasting Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) ...

and

Digital Radio Mondiale Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM; ''mondiale'' being Italian and French for "worldwide") is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for analogue radio broadcasting including AM broadcasting—pa ...

. In August 2018, Thomson Broadcast was acquired by Groupe Sipromad, and is currently managed as part of the Technology Business Unit under the entity Phenixya. In April 2022, Thomson Broadcast began the process of acquiring

GatesAir GatesAir is an American electronics manufacturer that produces, markets and services terrestrial TV and radio broadcast equipment globally. Products and Services GatesAir manufactures transmitters and associated broadcast gear for over-the-air ...

. The acquisition was closed in August 2022.

Products

Products manufactured by Thomson Broadcast include: * Radio and television transmission systems * Gigativy high-power television transmitters * Megativy II medium-power television transmitters * Dreamline low-power television transmitters * S7HP Neo medium-wave radio transmitters * RF passive components

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.thomson-broadcast.com/ Electronics companies of France