BROADCAST ELECTRONICS AND JUMP2GO COMPLETE iTUNES AND HD RADIO CONNECTION

September 12, 2007

Source: Broadcast Electronics

Completing the iPod and HD Radio connection, Jump2Go and Broadcast Electronics (BE) announced today a new service application for the broadcast studio that makes it possible for FM listeners to buy iTunes using their HD Radio tuners.

The application was developed by Jump2Go and is the latest in a long list of options available through Broadcast Electronics' TRE Message Manager, a suite of studio applications for radio datacasting and advanced features such as creating messages on HD Radio tuners.

Jump2Go is a BE partner formed last year to connect listeners with exciting new interactive content and features online and over the air.

The joint announcement comes just a week after the introduction of the next generation Polk Audio I-Sonic and JBL iHD receivers with Apple's iTunes Tagging technology, which enables FM listeners to mark their favorite songs playing on the air and then purchase them later via iTunes. The new radios store information about the tagged songs and transfer the tags to an iPod when docked.

BE's TRE Message Manager with Jump2Go Go Commerce embeds the correct Apple tags and provides the synchronization required for earmarking songs in real-time as they're played over the air.

BE's TRE Message Manager software feeds on-air song lists to the Jump2Go data center for tagging. The Jump2Go service assigns the unique iTunes identifier to each song that is selected by the listener. The data is inserted into the IBOC bitstream, transported to the receiver, and then to the iPod. Tagged songs can then be reviewed and purchased through iTunes once the iPod is docked to the radio.

"This advanced HD Radio service is bound to be an enormous benefit to the radio industry. I'm proud of our partnership with Jump2Go and the progress we've made with TRE to be able to offer such an important capability," said Ray Miklius, Vice President of Studio Systems for BE, which makes HD Radio and data equipment for studio as well as RF environments.

Several broadcast groups have already committed to the tagging technology in addition to their regular HD Radio broadcasts.

The new Jump2Go function complements BE's expansive studio suite for Messagecasting and audio production that includes AudioVAULT digital media system and TRE Message Manager.

TRE Message Manager is the industry's only integrated solution for messages and text. It accepts multiple data inputs, formats and manages the data, and outputs to analog FM using RDS, HD Radio main and secondary channels and station web sites.

Tagging is also supported by the latest BE IDi 20 HD Radio Data Importer and XPi 10 HD Radio Exporter at the RF site for delivering the new service to HD Radio receivers.

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