Mediacom buys Vutek

Mediacom has bought a new computerized printing system that speeds up the production time for backlit billboards, superboards and airport advertising posters.

The system, called Vutek, cost Mediacom about $500,000.

Vutek allows production from original artwork to billboard in two days. When Mediacom gets acceptable digital tape or disk, production might only run a few hours.

Reid Benison, president of Mediacom’s production group, says the system is ideal for small quantity runs for all horizontal outdoor products.

For runs of fewer than 10, Benison says advertisers will pay about one-third less than they would for conventional production such as silk screening and hand painting.

Vutek prints on materials such as flexible vinyl, self-adhesive vinyl and paper. It has four resolutions up to 18 dots per inch.

Mediacom and Sony of Canada have already collaborated on two superboards using the Vutek system. The boards are up in mid-town and downtown Toronto.

Karhu, Leaf star sign deal

Karhu Canada has signed a multi-year product endorsement deal with Toronto Maple Leaf centre Doug Gilmour.

The five-year agreement means Gilmour now plays with the company’s Titan ASD 10,000 stick and Jofa ASD gloves.

No financial details of the deal were announced.

Karhu Canada’s hockey brands are Jofa, Titan, Koho and Canadien.

The company, with offices and facilities in Lachine, Cowansville and Drummondville, all in Quebec, and Burlington, Vt., also has factories in Sweden and Finland.

As well as Gilmour, Karhu Canada has numerous other National Hockey League stars under contract. Among them are Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux and Montreal’s Patrick Roy. Both men wear Koho equipment.

Sound Source broadcast pact

Elsewhere on the sports front, the Local Organizing Committee of the 1994 World Championship of Basketball has reached an agreement with Sound Source, the network radio division of Standard Radio, to broadcast 12 games of the 11-day event.

The broadcasts include more than 40 hours of live play-by-play coverage of Canadian national and u.s. ‘Dream Team’ games. The championship starts Aug. 4.

Jean-Marie Heimrath, vice-president and general manager of Sound Source, says ad sales for the event will start in earnest at the beginning of March.

Heimrath says he hopes to have one station in each major Canadian market broadcast the games, although he concedes interest in the championship diminishes the farther the market is away from centre court.

All games in the championship will be played in Toronto and Hamilton. Sixteen teams will take part.

The championship was brought to Toronto by John Bitove – who helped land the Toronto National Basketball Association franchise – after it became obvious the games could not be played as scheduled in the former Yugoslavia.