Gracenote Acquires Baseline for $50 Million

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Gracenote, a subsidiary of Tribune Media Co., has acquired entertainment metadata provider Baseline of Los Angeles for $50 million.

Baseline’s database includes information on more than 300,000 movies and TV shows, ranging from shooting locations, project financing and cast and crew credits. It also has data on 1.5 million professionals in the entertainment industry and box office data from 45 territories.

Gracenote provides music and video data to entertainment companies, so the acquisition will give it the ability to cover the “full entertainment ecosystem from content creation to consumption by viewers,” according to the company.

“For years, Baseline has served as the trusted source for entertainment data to help digital media companies, studios and agencies stay on top of a fast changing industry,” John Batter, who became Gracenote’s chief executive on Tuesday, said in a statement.

“Baseline’s deep production data coupled with its existing relationships with the studio community will help us improve the depth and breadth of the data we offer to existing Gracenote customers,” continued Batter, who had been chief executive at M-GO, a Culver City digital movie and TV streaming site.

Headquartered in Emeryville, Gracenote was bought by then-Tribune Co. of Chicago in February for $161 million.

Baseline was sold to New York Times Co. in 2006 for $35 million. The data firm was bought back for an undisclosed amount by its previous owners, husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Mitch Rubenstein and Laurie Silvers, through their new company Project Hollywood.

Baseline is expected to maintain its operations in Culver City. It has 50 employees, about 40 of whom work in Culver City.

Staff reporter Melissah Yang can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @MelissahYang for the latest in L.A. tech news.

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