Westwood One Acquires Sigalert

Westwood One, which provides a variety of syndicated radio content to radio and TV broadcasters, is bolstering its traffic news content with the acquisition of Sigalert from Jaytu Technologies, LLC.

The deal will give Westwood One control of Sigalert's digital system for collecting and distributing traffic information for various areas in Southern California, Northern California and Arizona. Westwood plans to expand Sigalert's coverage from its eight current markets to a total of 65 markets by the end of the year.

Sigalert's content offerings include freeway and highway maps with traffic speed, accident details and other relevant information in a display that is compatible with the Web, mobile, phones, PDAs, and TV traffic reports. It can also personalized traffic alerts for drivers based on their daily routines, which Westwood One will now be able to offer to radio, TV and digital affiliates.

Among other benefits, Sigalert will allow affiliates to maintain a consistent look across their broadcast, online, and mobile traffic information content.

Sigalert's co-founders, Jonathan Berke and Joel Johnstone, are joining Westwood One to help direct the expansion of the traffic information service to new markets.

This is the latest in a series of deals struck by Westwood One to augment content offerings and also provide advertisers with greater scale.

In September 2009, it announced a partnership making it the exclusive affiliate and advertising sales representative for the Weather Channel Radio Network. The three-year deal gives 5,000 Westwood radio station affiliates access to Weather Channel branded-content, including live severe weather updates, drawing on the expertise of 30 radio broadcast meteorologists and 100 meteorologists and experts in Weather Channel's cable operations.

Altogether, Westwood's content portfolio counts more than 150 programs, including talk shows hosted by Bill O'Reilly, Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller and Dr. Phil.