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Stations Broadcast to the World

Forty stations sent over 300 hours of radio content home from the International Radio Festival in Zurich

ZURICH — The International Radio Festival offered the unique opportunity to “listen to how the world sounds” during August, with more than 40 national and international radio stations broadcasting from the festival hotel in Zurich, Switzerland.

Each year, alongside the main business-to-business event and conference, the festival celebrates the medium, and shares its international program with those who want to tune in.

The View From the International Radio Festival Studio.
Photos by Alexander Spinelli for IRF

To allow the festival’s radio guests to broadcast back to their home audiences, a temporary studio was built by installation specialists Decibel in the bar of the Four Points by Sheraton Sihlcity hotel. The only difference from a regular radio station studio was the lack of double-glazing, allowing presenters to interact fully with other festival delegates and the public.

The studio took around two days to build, and included an Axia Fusion AoIP digital radio console with four fixed Audio-Technica BP40 mics, ATH-M40x headphones and an ENCO DAD radio automation system. Music DJs were able to use Pioneer CD players, an Allen & Heath Xone:92 mixer and Technics turntables.

Broadcasters connected to their home stations either via the Internet, on a fiber-optic line provided by Swisscom Broadcast, or via ISDN using Orban Opticodec 7600 codecs.

The IRF also partnered with Omny Studio, whose team helped the stations access their on-air audio with editing and publication of sound clips across all social media channels.

Darryl von Daniken and Nick von Frankenberg
broadcast from the IRF studio.

International Radio Festival Director Darryl von Daniken, Left,
With Festival President, Tony Prince

Stations from around the world broadcasting from Zurich included Italian public broadcasters RAI Radio 2 and Radio 3; Nogoum FM in Cairo; Kiss FM, Melbourne, Victoria; RSI Rete Tre, Switzerland; Jil FM, Algeria; InterFM, Tokyo; Love Radio, Shanghai; Radio IFM, Tunisia; BIG FM, India; and U.K. digital station Mi-Soul.

Pride Radio, iHeartRadio’s brand for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community also broadcast from the festival in a partnership with HD Radio developer iBiquity Digital. In total, over 300 hours of radio content was broadcast from the festival.

The full schedule of programs from stations was also transmitted on FM and DAB+, and around the world on the Internet. Festival Director Darryl von Daniken said: “On FM we had on average 50,000 daily listeners covering the greater Zurich area; on DAB we covered the entire east to west part of Switzerland, reaching around 250,000 listeners a day.”

Ming Zhang and Brother Huan of Love Radio Shanghai
transmit from the IRF studio.

Normski broadcasts to the U.K.’s Hoxton FM
from Zurich.

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