Cable networks in the early 1990s slipped local commercials into national shows using banks of videotape machines. SeaChange replaced the tapes with digital video servers. Its SPOT System let a cable operator run ads aimed at a single town. William Styslinger, who had run the cable TV unit at Digital Equipment Corporation, started the company near Boston in 1993. By its IPO in November 1996, SeaChange was also selling servers for video on demand.

From Tape Decks to Servers

Styslinger and engineer Edward McGrath founded the company in July 1993 as SeaView Technology and renamed it SeaChange two months later. It shipped its first products in 1994. Digital ad insertion paid the bills. The bigger bet was the SeaChange Movie System, which stored films on disk and streamed them to cable subscribers when they pressed play. That turned cable boxes into video stores and gave operators a new source of revenue.

The Long Fade

SeaChange priced at $15 a share in November 1996 and listed on Nasdaq as SEAC. Video on demand did take off on cable, and SeaChange became a major supplier to large operators. Then streaming moved the action to the internet, and its old customers shrank. SeaChange left Nasdaq voluntarily in 2023. In 2024 it sold its business to Enghouse Systems for about $39 million, less its cash.

Cover: Breaking Waves, September Tide, Louis Auguste Lepère. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for breaking waves (a sea change).