General – Page 53 – Engineering Radio

Radio Industry Technology Study

Wheatstone, Inc has sponsored a radio industry future technology study which brings into focus some of the connections between technology and radio business models. It appears to be very thorough, polling radio professionals on all aspects of technology development and management.

According to Josh Gordon:

While it is hard to predict which of the radio industry’s newest business models will succeed in generating new revenues, we can better anticipate the winners by measuring how fast the technologies that enable them are being adopted.

To find out, we surveyed the radio professionals involved in all aspects of technology management (engineers, and operations and technical management). The results reported in this study can serve as a benchmark for managers to evaluate their own organizations’ progress.

The first graph tells:

Almost everyone believes that the internet will play a greater role in radio (and all media). This goes against the “radio with its head in the sand” idea that can be found in some corners of the internet (I’d provide a link, but the site has turned on a paywall).

The question is, what are management-type people doing about it? Some have good ideas on how to bridge the gap between making money the old-fashioned way; selling spots, to making money the new way; brand imaging, media promotion, and personal contact through new media. While it is generally agreed that radio stations should stream their audio, many, if not most, make little or no money on this. If radio is going to make some revenue on internet applications, obviously some new ideas are needed.

Unique local content seems to be the most sought after, things like local news podcasts, or new music, e.g. studio sessions with up-and-coming bands and musicians, locally produced shows that are area specific, etc. Put a 10-second sponsorship in front of those and people will get the message. Other things like value-added contests can only be heard on the internet. Interactive radio station apps that have streaming, now playing, recently heard features that link to a .mp3 store for iPhone and Android operating systems. Text link adds on radio station web pages, etc.

On the flip side of this, huge, great amounts of bandwidth will be required if the internet streaming is going to approach the same number of off-the-air listeners. Depending on how the radio station has the stream set up, anywhere from 20 to 64 kbps of data transfer is needed for each listener. For a station in a large metropolitan area, multiply that by 500,000 to 4,000,000 listeners at any one time, and data gridlock ensues.

On the in-house side, the red hot, cutting-edge thing these days is AOIP (Audio over IP), which Wheatstone is heavily invested in with its E console series. While some might not think of AOIP as a traditional Internet application, it nonetheless uses the same transport protocols as other Internet applications. AOIP offers some great advantages over other routing systems, as both private (internal) and public (wide area) networking can be used to transfer audio in real-time. Of course, this is not as easy as plugging the new computer into an ethernet jack, it takes more planning than that.

Wheatstone has published an excellent white paper on Network Design for Ethernet Audio. Well worth the read.

As AOIP technology develops more, web streams could come directly from the console and be customizable according to destination. Further, IP logging can create stream user profiles and customizable greetings, listening preferences, and so on. This would require that the web streaming server be in-house and that the studio facility has enough bandwidth to handle all of the outgoing streams and other content.

Certainly an in-house IT/Web developer will be needed to manage and maintain such a system.

You can download and read the entire studio at Alethea/Wheatstone Radio Survey. The cliff notes summary is this:

Finding #1: Almost all radio tech people believe the Internet will play a bigger part in the future of radio.

Finding #2:Of the new revenue generating technologies, streaming a station’s signal has the biggest earning potential.

Finding #3: Technologies that require little or no capital investment are being deployed at similar frequencies by both stand-alone and group owned stations.

Finding #4: A technology gap is emerging as stand-alone stations deploy revenue generating technologies requiring investment at only half the frequency as group owned stations.

Finding #5: The revenue generating technology that most group owned stations plan on deploying next is a mobile app, while for stand-alone stations, it is broadcasting in HD Radio, with mobile apps coming in a close second.

Finding #6: There is a big divide between radio stations that are now, or will soon be, making money from streaming their signal over the Internet, and those who likely never will.

Finding #7: The day will come slowly, but in 15 years a majority of radio stations expect they will have more online listeners than RF listeners.

Finding #8: Despite the expected decline in over the air listeners, few stations expect to turn off their transmitters.

Finding #9: Three years from now, radio station technology will be more IT centric with more automation, as well as more networking between stations, IT networks, and office and audio networks.

Finding #10: Three years from now, the stability of each radio station network will be more important, as will networks with no single point of failure.

Finding #11: Three years from now, more audio consoles will be networked together. Also, the bandwidth of those networks will be required to increase.

Finding #12: The top reason group owned stations bought an AoIP network was to reduce maintenance costs. The top reason for stand-alone stations: to share talent.

Finding #13: At stations that have installed an AoIP network, more than a third of stand-alone stations found installing it harder than anticipated, while only 16.7% of group owned stations found installation harder than anticipated.

Finding #14: At stations with an AoIP network, more than one in four stand-alone stations and one in three group owned stations report latency problems.

The study is a good indication of where technical managers see growth. One thing that internet sites like Pandora have shown, radio broadcasters cannot sit back and be content with the status quo. Without technical innovation and some outside-of-the-line thinking, the radio will be bypassed by newer more interactive media services.

Something to ponder.

The Pacific Records and Engineering BMXII console

I snapped these pictures at WICC in Bridgeport, CT. It is an older PR&E BMXII console, with 26 channels, I believe.

Pacific Recorders BMXII 26 — Pacific Recorders and Engineering BMXII 26

These were manufactured starting in 1985, I installed one in 1990. It is a testament to their durability that this one has lasted 23 years. They were expensive when purchased, and all of them were purchased directly from PR&E, Carlsbad, California. The beauty of these things is their modularity. All of the major components are replaceable, including the module face inlays.

Penny Giles conductive plastic fader, PRE BMXII console

The faders, Penny and Giles 4000 series, are fully rebuildable. The part that wears out the most is the nylon bushings that slide along the metal rails. The contact fingers sometimes also need to be replaced. These are 10 Kohm conductive plastic linear faders. P&G does not make these anymore, they have been replaced by the 8000 series, which has an edge connector instead of a wiring harness. Since the top of the fader is open, it also tends to accumulate dust, dirt, and other debris. The fader board itself should be cleaned off with warm water, light soap may be used if needed. Do not use alcohol on these because it eats into the conductive plastic and ruins the fader.

PRE BNXII line input module — PR&E BMXII line input module

One of the great things about this console is the fact that all the modules are hot-pluggable. If one needs to be serviced, it can be pulled out of the main frame while the console is on the air and a new module plugged into it’s place. Only the line output module replacement necessitated taking the station off the air, and then only for a few seconds. It was a great concept that is now standard in almost every broadcast console.

There were several basic module configurations. On the input side, line level, mic level, and telco were standard console inputs. There was also a passive remote line select button set. Out put modules consisted of line-level output, control room monitor, and studio monitor modules.

PR&E consoles were top-of-the-line gear, but expensive. Most radio stations could not afford them and went with less expensive models like Wheatstone, BE, LPB, Autogram, Radio Systems, etc. The fact that some of these BMXII consoles are approaching 30 years of age and still in service is a testament to their construction.

In the early 1990s, PR&E began branching out into the lower priced market with their product line. They produced the Radiomixer and Productionmixer consoles, however, mid-market-sized radio stations were slow in adopting them because PR&E had the reputation of being expensive. After all, if you can only afford a Chevrolet, why bother looking at the Mercedes?

This is a grainy promotions photo from the early 1990s showing what I think is the WQXR master control room, nick named “The Bridge.” I took a tour there around 1993 or so and it was a fantastic facility, of course, the New York Times spared no expense. I really felt like Willie Wonka in the Chocolate factory.

Later in that decade, they changed the name to Pacific Research and Engineering, and the went public. I think going public was the death knell, soon thereafter they sold the entire product line to Harris Broadcast. The final non-Harris console was the Airwave, which is a good medium-duty modular console, incorporating some of the traditional PR&E designs. The later consoles stopped routing audio directly through the faders, using voltage-controlled amplifiers instead. This solved some of the channel drop out problems that sometimes occurred in earlier consoles. The Airwave consoles are much less durable than the BMX series, however, with the advent of voice tracking, perhaps 24/7 durability is not that necessary anymore.

Harris has dropped support of much of the early PR&E line, but there are those that soldier on, buying up parts and rebuilding these things. Mooretronix has a good selection of BMX and ABX parts.

The WICC/WEBE installation is about to be refurbed, which means these consoles will be headed out the door. There are three of them in fair condition.

Things that make you go, Hmmmm part II

I am not sure what the purpose of this is for, or who put it there:

The mystery type 66 punch block is mounted high up on the wall in the hallway. The contractors are removing the carpeting on the wall and drywalling over it, when they reached this, they just cut around the block and kept going. On one side is a Teflon jacketed 25-pair category 3 phone wire, which goes back to the rack room, somewhere. The rack room is a little disorganized and it is difficult to mess around with the various bundles of wire without knocking a station off the air.

On the other side is a bunch of 1N1004 diodes punched down. Perhaps some sort of door light circuit? Or maybe a remote channel selector for one of those old Scientific Atlanta 7300 series satellite receivers? I don’t know.

I used my big wire loppers and cut the cable. There were no sparks and everyone stayed on the air. I pulled the whole thing down and removed it, so the drywall contractor can finish patching the holes.

The entire facility is getting gutted and redone soon.

Things that make you go, Hmmm.

I was doing a weekly visit to one of our FM transmitter sites the other day when I noticed this:

Dented deadbolt lock at transmitter site — Dented deadbolt lock at the transmitter site

Looks like somebody has been whacking the deadbolt lock with a hammer or a wrench or something. Pretty sure that was not like that the last time I was here. Time to get one of those IP cameras and set it up on the tower.