Further to a preliminary agreement reached in December 2000 with Philips Royal Electronics, Thomson multimedia has recently announced the acquisition of the Professional Broadcast businesses of Philips.

The five businesses of the Philips Professional Broadcast group include cameras, film imaging, signal processing (digital production switchers), media networking & control (routing & switchers), and the Philips broadcast Systems Group.

This acquisition will strengthen Thomson Digital Media Solutions (DMS) division, the fifth business segment focused on business-to-business solutions for broadcasters, content providers, network operators and advertisers aiming at deploying full digital video content solutions, a company press release says.

Thomson multimedia Broadcast Solutions had a turnover of over 400 million Euros of sales in 2000. The new entity is now leader in its market in Europe and number two worldwide.

Further to this acquisition, the new entity, including the previous professional broadcast activities from Thomson broadcast systems, Philips Professional Broadcast will be called Thomson multimedia Broadcast Solutions. Together with Nextream, a joint venture between Thomson and Alcatel dedicated to the highly growing Interactive Video market, Thomson multimedia Broadcast Solutions will address end-to-end needs of the businesses which operate in the digital media chain.