Liberty Livewire rebrand as Ascent Media Group

Liberty Livewire, one of the world’s largest technical and creative service providers to producers, owners and distributors of entertainment and advertising content, has changed the corporate name of its operation in the UK to Ascent Media Group.
This follows the company’s US rebranding initiative and the change of the company’s NASDAQ ticker symbol for its Class A common stock from LWIRA to AMGIA in November 2002.
Ascent Media Group provides a wealth of services to content owners in post-production, media asset management and content distribution made available through the company’s three service segments – Ascent Media Creative Services (formerly Liberty Livewire Pictures), Ascent Media Network Services (formerly Liberty Livewire Networks) and Ascent Media Management Services (formerly Liberty Livewire Media). Among the myriad services offered within the company are telecine, online and offline editing, visual effects, foreign language dubbing, sound editorial, sound mixing, digital asset management, encoding, uplink services, distribution to foreign broadcast, Internet delivery, system integration and video-on-demand. These services are offered on a global basis through over 100 facilities in five countries, provided by more than 3,700 employees, with the UK operation engaging over 900 employees across 15 facilities.
The company enjoys a strong reputation among its many clients, in part due to the exceptional group of creative talent within the company, whose work has been recognised with 15 Academy Awards and 22 Emmy Awards.
The renaming of Liberty Livewire to Ascent Media Group marks the culmination of a strategic effort that began two years ago with the establishment of Liberty Livewire in June 2000. Liberty Livewire was formed through a series of strategic acquisitions, which resulted in the largest global aggregation of media services companies providing post-production, media asset management and content distribution services.
The acquired businesses include such industry powerhouses as Rushes, Todd-AO, 4MC, Company 3, R!OT, Method, Encore, Level 3 Post, Soundelux, POP Sound, Digital Image, Audio+Video International, Group W Network Services, Waterfront Communications, A.F. Associates and Asia Broadcast Centre.
Collectively, these global companies represent the consolidation of what has largely been a fragmented marketplace for content owners, who have been forced to administer multiple vendor relationships in diverse geographic locations to produce, manage and distribute their content assets.
(SP)