Hughes Expands Managed Digital Signage Offering

August 18, 2008

Enterprise customers of its HughesNet® Managed Digital Signage service will now be able to display real-time weather information at their retail sites from AccuWeather, Inc., the leading provider of weather information for companies such as Gas Station TV and FuelCast. Hughes is initially bringing this offering to gas stations and convenience stores, where displaying the latest weather conditions will be an important value-add to end customers.

Through AccuWeather.com, AccuWeather offers highly localized, accurate, and reliable weather forecasts for more than 2.7 million locations worldwide. Real-time delivery of AccuWeather.com content will be managed and delivered to enterprise customers of the HughesNet Managed Digital Signage service. Depending upon the application chosen by the enterprise, a customer watching a display could be presented three forecast choices: current, hourly, and five day.

“Weather is perhaps the most valuable real-time content in keeping a consumer-facing digital signage solution relevant, particularly for those traveling by car,” said Jeff Bixler, assistant vice president of business development at Hughes. “We chose AccuWeather for its marquee brand and superior forecasting content, which consumers will undoubtedly find useful and may positively impact a purchasing decision.”

Offering accurate weather content is also valuable to digital signage customers seeking third-party advertising revenues, because timely forecasts keep people tuned into the content being delivered and that means a more captive audience for advertisers.

“As the world's leading weather authority, we've worked long and hard to bring to market weather information and services that are truly best of breed, while working with first class providers such as Hughes,” said Mike Welsh, director of Digital Signage Sales at AccuWeather. “Our content significantly enhances the HughesNet Managed Service offering by engaging customers and helping develop an affinity to other content being displayed at the point-of-sale, thereby dramatically improving the overall ROI of the digital signage application.”