This is one in a series about how stations are creating and managing their audio from anywhere, thanks to virtualization, cloud, IP and other technologies. This is from the free ebook “Audio Production (From Anywhere).”
Jeff McGinley is vice president of engineering at SummitMedia. He says the company approaches distributed workflows in several ways.
“We have a remote morning show co-anchor in another state who uses a traditional codec to dial back into the station every weekday morning — tried and true and well-tested tech that’s been around forever,” he said.
“In three of our markets, we’ve upgraded studios to the Axia Altus console, which has a webRTC backend that allows any computer to act as if it’s a hardware codec.”
SummitMedia also has a remote studio in Gatlinburg, Tenn., located in a restaurant. It is used every week to dial back into the Knoxville stations for a live broadcast.
“Finally, we use the RCS Zetta2Go remote application if we have staff go to do a more traditional appearance remote. Our jocks can record a break on their phone a few minutes before the break is supposed to air. It gets sent to that market’s server, ingested and then played out as ‘almost-live.’”
For McGinley, the introduction of webRTC was crucial.
[Related: “The Stream Is as Important as the Transmitter”]
“This technology is going to change quite a bit in the next few years, and absolutely was not something that was available or at least on most people’s radar five to 10 years ago,” he said.
“Anyone with a laptop can connect via a VPN to the station network and broadcast from anywhere using a very basic setup. I believe that this is going to affect more than just broadcasting from anywhere, but how companies look at real estate and actual studio space,” he said.
“There is no need for a full-sized studio that requires HVAC and sound dampening. Anyone from anywhere with a decent mic and processor can be anywhere in the world and send audio back to get on the air, be it live for a specific on-air show or record a production bit for a commercial for a client.”
Can a complex multi-host morning show be executed as easily and smoothly via a distributed architecture as the traditional single-site installation?
“Absolutely. We are currently doing it with a traditional Comrex codec with a morning show that originates in Omaha but is distributed to almost 50 radio stations,” McGinley replied.
“One of our hosts moved to Pennsylvania, which is when we started doing this. However, this technology has been around for quite a bit now. I set up something similar with a morning show in Audacy in Seattle.”
The main concern, he said, is making the show sound like everyone is still in the same room.
“Kevin and Bean did this for years on KROQ-FM. The back-and-forth banter of the hosts that makes the show work needs to be paramount, even if they’re over 1,100 miles away from each other.”
Investing in IT infrastructure should be the first thing a company tackles when planning such an arrangement.
“On the top of your list should be a top-tier firewall, VPN tunnels and people who understand how to configure and maintain it. This is not something to skimp on.
“Thankfully at SummitMedia, we have the best IT person I’ve ever worked with, Brett Glover. All the credit needs to go to him. He is an absolute wizard at keeping everything running smoothly, keeping all of our VPN tunnels up and running. We also have a number of STLs through what Brett has accomplished.”
McGinley recommends that you conduct frequent penetration testing and educate staff through videos, emails and guidance about when to report suspicious material.
Looking ahead, “There is technology coming that will have both the automation system and a virtual console that will be cloud-based,” he said.
“There are still some considerations that haven’t been answered, like how satellite content delivery and closures will be addressed, but this will definitely be something that we broadcast engineers will have to get ready to deploy in the next few years.
“A wise man I know once said, ‘Wake up and smell the radio.’ Stay tuned. It’s only going to accelerate from here.”
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