Radio World Buyer’s Guide articles are intended to help readers understand why their colleagues chose particular products to solve various technical situations. This month’s articles focus on media asset management including automation, traffic and billing.
There comes a time in every broadcast system when the technology lifecycle is ready for a refresh, even if the current system’s performance remains strong. Such is the case with Brewer Media Group’s two-station FM cluster serving the Chattanooga, Tenn., market. Thanks to a relocation project, Brewer Media Group was inspired to upgrade studio operations for FM stations WMPZ and WJTT.
On-air and production personnel across both stations have been working with ENCO’s DAD radio automation system since 2002 after Sam Lewis of Chattanooga Engineering transitioned the facility’s computer operating systems from DOS to Windows. While updates have been made along the way, there was no time like the present for a hardware and software upgrade.
Lewis was satisfied with DAD’s workflow and reliability over two decades but wanted to make a system upgrade that would allow staff to take advantage of the latest features and functionality.
“We implemented a new IT infrastructure and higher performance computers allowing the staff to perform multiple functions within the DAD on-air and production suites,” said Lewis.
“That can mean many things, from creating and managing multiple playlists, to automatically downloading and ingesting audio into multiple libraries. We can also now automate RDS formats for radio displays and streaming services. That just scratches the surface.”
DAD workstations have been added to on-air and production studios for each station, along with Logitek consoles that Lewis selected in part for their robust interoperability with DAD. The flexibility of the integration will allow automatic switching between any studio to suit each station’s needs on the fly.
Lewis said the station will continue to favor the DAD applications they are most familiar with, including enConveyor for automated file downloads and ListGen to interface with music scheduling and traffic software for tracking and log creation.
Lewis also decided to bring an ENCO server into the new facility for on-air protection from minor blips to full disaster recovery scenarios.
“This is a server with a modern RAID array, and six different drives configured as one large drive to optimize performance. There is at least 5 TB of capacity for both stations, and it automatically feeds their air chain where things left off.”
