Independent local news publisher uses AdButler as middleware infrastructure to connect 65 digital out-of-home screens to national demand—without replacing existing technology

DURANGO, Colo., US / Wilmington, De., USA / VICTORIA, B.C., Canada – May 6, 2026 – For nearly a decade, Local NEWS Network (LNN) has relied on AdButler's ad serving platform to power advertising across its website, newsletters, mobile app, and video content. Now, the micropolitan news company is sharing how it extended that foundation in a new direction. By using AdButler as a central middleware layer, LNN has connected its network of 65 digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens in southwest Colorado to national programmatic advertising demand through ScrnNow, a DOOH monetization platform. The result: passive revenue from national brands flowing directly into local news creation, without overhauling existing infrastructure.

LNN operates across four communities in southwest Colorado, placing digital displays in local businesses, airports, and public gathering places where residents spend time throughout their day. The screens broadcast a mix of short-form local video news and advertising, creating a hyperlocal media channel that serves both audiences and community businesses. Until recently, monetizing those screens at scale presented a significant challenge: national programmatic advertisers typically require networks of 500 screens or more before they will engage, leaving smaller publishers like LNN effectively shut out of that revenue stream.

To bridge that gap without abandoning its existing Navori digital signage software, LNN's CTO, Nathan Morris, engineered a solution using AdButler as a pass-through middleware layer. Each screen in LNN's network is assigned a unique player ID. When ad inventory is available, AdButler passes a variable to ScrnNow to check for a matching national ad. If demand exists, the ad plays. If not, LNN's own local content fills the slot seamlessly. The result is a unified, largely automated system that layers national programmatic revenue on top of existing local advertising: all managed through AdButler.

"We had AdButler already doing a lot of work for us across our website, newsletter, mobile app, and video content," said Laurie Sigillito, CEO of Local NEWS Network. "What surprised us was how we could turn it into the connective tissue between our digital out-of-home network and national programmatic demand through ScrnNow, without having to rip and replace anything. It opened up an ecosystem we couldn't reach before, and it's creating a new stream of passive income that directly supports local news creation."

For LNN, the commercial stakes extend beyond revenue. The company's mission is to reverse a broader trend in local media, one in which small-market businesses send advertising dollars to large technology platforms in order to reach their own neighbors. By capturing a share of national programmatic budgets and directing it back into community-based journalism, LNN sees the AdButler-ScrnNow integration as a structural piece of a larger sustainability model for independent local news.

"Local NEWS Network has built a DOOH network across SW Colorado, publishing good local news and advertising by local companies but monetization has historically been fragmented and difficult to scale," said Lucas Krump, CEO of ScrnNow. "With ScrnNow, we're making it simple for networks under 500 screens to tap into national programmatic demand and turn their screens into consistent, revenue-generating assets without adding operational complexity."

Beyond the DOOH integration, AdButler continues to serve LNN across its full digital advertising stack, managing ad zones across its consolidated web platform, newsletters, and mobile app, with geo-targeting now being deployed to serve location-specific advertising to readers based on which community they select. LNN currently manages approximately 60 active advertisers and 10 publications through the platform, with ambitions to scale to hundreds of communities across the US.

"LNN is a great example of what becomes possible when a publisher uses AdButler as a flexible infrastructure layer rather than a single-purpose tool," said Rajiv Khaneja, CEO of AdButler. "They've built a genuinely creative solution, connecting their community screens to national programmatic demand while keeping local advertisers and local journalism at the center of the experience. That kind of publisher-first ingenuity is exactly what we build for."

With its DOOH network now generating passive revenue from national programmatic demand alongside its established local advertising business, LNN is building on that momentum to expand its reach. The company has its sights set on OTT (over-the-top streaming) as its next distribution frontier, with plans to bring the same community-focused model, and AdButler, into that channel as it grows its footprint across small-town America.