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Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) and FreeWheel, a leading online advertising technology company, today announced a strategic partnership that will give WMG the tools to manage and monetize its online advertising strategy.  Under the agreement, WMG will use FreeWheel's Monetization Rights Management (MRM) platform to place, monitor and track ad usage and effectiveness across a range of artist sites and leading digital media platforms.
 
 “Working with FreeWheel’s powerful technology platform allows us to enhance our online advertising strategy and, along with the brand targeting effort we recently established with Outrigger Media, offers the kind of critical management tools we need to maximize the value of that strategy for our artists,” said Mike Jbara, President and CEO, WEA Corp, WMG’s U.S. sales and retail marketing company. “Our goal is to turn our artists’ digital footprint into reliable revenue streams for them, and these tools enable us to do that quickly and precisely, while also enabling us to scale our effort across a wide range of genres and sites.” 
 
“We’re obviously very excited to be working with Warner Music Group, and regard their artists’ videos as exactly the kind of premium content that our technology was made for,” said Doug Knopper, Co-CEO of FreeWheel.  “By working with our technology and services, Warner Music Group can seamlessly control the advertising around their content across multiple outlets while managing it all from the same advertising inventory platform.” 
 
WMG’s advertising strategy aims to extend the power of the artist brand by driving revenue around video content. As part of this approach, WMG recently announced plans for a premium online video advertising platform that will feature artist-branded channels showcasing high quality music videos and video content, and provide revenue opportunities for artists through the sale of targeted advertising embedded in the video experience, approved sponsorships with appropriate brands and direct-to-consumer sales. WMG will deploy its strategy across a range of owned and operated sites as well as with leading third-party distribution partners. 
 
FreeWheel believes its MRM platform is the most comprehensive end-to-end online video technology that allows content owners to simplify the task of managing video advertising sales rights, ad delivery, and revenue accounting. The platform simplifies the process of content owners selling and managing their ads across numerous Web sites and is emerging at a time when the music industry seeks to exert more control over the advertising around its artists’ content.
 
About Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group became the only stand-alone music company to be publicly traded in the United States in May 2005. With its broad roster of new stars and legendary artists, Warner Music Group is home to a collection of the best-known record labels in the music industry including Asylum, Atlantic, Cordless, East West, Elektra, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Roadrunner, Rykodisc, Sire, Warner Bros. and Word. Warner Music International, a leading company in national and international repertoire, operates through numerous international affiliates and licensees in more than 50 countries. Warner Music Group also includes Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world's leading music publishers, with a catalog of more than one million copyrights worldwide.
 
About FreeWheel
To video content owners, rights holders, and publishers, FreeWheel® provides the first Monetization Rights Management® platform – a technology solution that dramatically reduces the unique financial risks and operational complexities of video ad management across syndication relationships. FreeWheel combines the innovation of a start-up with the most experienced and talented team of industry veterans. With decades of leadership experience at leading ad serving and monetization companies such as DoubleClick, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google, FreeWheel’s team is united in the understanding that video is fundamentally different from display advertising, and needs a unique technological solution and suite of services to deliver optimal financial performance with minimal complexity.  For more information, please visit: www.freewheel.tv
 
 
Source: Warner Music Group