Radio & Audio News South Africa

SA provides radio product for US

Fontera, a local mobile product development company, has signed a licensing agreement with US-based Spark Network Services, a division of AdvancedTele.com. Spark Network Services is the largest provider of radio voice personals in North America.

Simon Leps, MD of Fontera, says: "The licensing agreement allows the company to distribute RadioTXT to its more than 400 radio stations in the United States and Canada.

"The product will be branded as PromoTXTRadio and the licensing agreement allows the Philadelphia based company to distribute RadioTXT throughout North America, including the USA and Canada."

He says RadioTXT is utilised by a number of radio stations in South Africa and allows broadcasters to build a database of listeners while offering value added services such as competition, vote, dedication, comment, eye-witness traffic and breaking news lines.

Particularly relevant to this agreement was the fact that RadioTXT can be used on GSM, CDMA and TDMA cellular networks - making it suitable for the global marketplace. Further, Fontera's in-studio text messaging system can be integrated with a variety of platforms; including interactive voice response (IVR), e-mail, the Internet and Instant Messaging (IM).

Bob Bentz, co-owner of AdvancedTele.com, says: "The product offering of Fontera is a very well engineered product. We are confident that we have the experience and the sales channels to effectively roll out this exciting new product to the North American media market.

"As the States does not have a strong GSM tradition or background, RadioTXT is set to be groundbreaking within the US market. It is the first of its kind in the region and will provide many radio stations and listeners with SMS features and functionality for the first time."

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