[Philip Lelyveld comment: big news on a quiet news day. Sony sells an amazing asset at a loss because they couldn't make it pay.]
Gracenote initially applied its technology to music. It tracks 180 million songs and is used by Apple, Spotify, Amazon and various car companies and app developers to identify, recommend and organize digital music. But Gracenote has more recently pushed into analyzing television consumption.
Tribune will make Gracenote part of its media services unit, which sells television listings and other data services to major cable providers and set-top-box makers.
The deal will make the Tribune unit one of the world’s largest repositories of entertainment metadata at a time when technology has given consumers access to more content than ever before, and advertisers new ways to identify and reach potential customers.
See the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/business/media/tribune-co-buys-electronic-media-data-firm.html?_r=0