Anew full service radio station dedicated to local, local, local and beaming

Transcription

1 Anew full service radio station dedicated to local, local, local and beaming an Adult AC format to a targeted audience of 25-64s, and providing news on the hour on the half hours in drive. Such is Sunshine 89.1 (CISO) Orillia, owned by Bayshore Broadcasting based in Owen Sound. Bayshore owns six other stations, in Port Elgin, Goderich, Wasaga Beach and Owen Sound. 3

2 But what was the attraction of Orillia? Why set up a new radio station there? Bayshore President/General Manager Ross Kentner: it s a great place to live and it just seemed to make a lot of sense. We were very, very aware of the fact that for years, Orillia had been deprived of local service. It happens in a lot of cities, not just this one. The fact remains that since CFOR s glory days, Orillia really hasn t had a local service. We felt there was quite an appetite for it and our idea was... that would be the niche. Ron Funnell, the GM at Sunshine 89.1 and a long-time radio man who once lived and worked in Orillia, says he s thrilled to be back in an area of the province that holds so much appeal. When he arrived early last year, he says, the search began for the proper location and facility to house the new station. There was lots of space, from a former Chinese buffet restaurant very near the shore of Lake Couchiching to another old restaurant in a strip mall on the south side of town but, said Funnell, a diamond in plain sight was where the lease was signed and sealed. We... selected this location (at the intersection of the major north-south highway and the city s main road) based on it being the busiest crossroads and on the visual we would have with City of Orillia residents as well as the commuters coming up (and down) the highway. Our Master Control has a clear view to Highway 11 and our newsroom has full vision of both the highway and the street. The building is new and we re the first tenants, he said. That was a huge consideration for our start-up in that we didn t get caught up in re-outfitting an existing structure. By starting from the bare walls, we built Sunshine based on our needs rather than re-jigging from someone else s requirements. Kentner observed that Orillia and Owen Sound are very similar cities. Solid design Logical assembly Efficient installation Unparalleled attention to detail HP Services congratulates Bayshore Broadcasting on the completion of Sunshine 89.1 CISO, Orillia Ontario. It has been a pleasure to work with the management and staff putting this state of the art radio station together. We are proud of the technical facility featuring the Wheatstone E1 system. We wish them continued and growing success! 46 Kings College Rd., Thornhill, Ontario L3T5J hps2@rogers.com From top: Bayshore President/General Manager Ross Kentner Ron Funnell, GM, Sunshine 89.1 Bayshore Broadcasting owner, Doug Caldwell at open house BROADCAST DIALOGUE Technology Insider April 5,

3 Sunshine 89.1 staff They re Victorian, they have similar backgrounds and I think they re both far enough from Toronto to buck the current. They re both dynamic places and very, very, strong cultural institutions. You couldn t help but be enthusiastic about becoming a radio station in the Sunshine city (Orillia s slogan). The lease began midway through the summer, and construction started shortly after that. At the same time, the transmitter was being constructed on a tree farm that is on one of the highest points in Simcoe County. It s also only seven minutes away from the station so quick access is, unless the weather is brutal, a given. Bob Cook, who owns BCB, handled the transmitter and the tower build. Funnell said the premises build began in July and the station went on-air in early December. It was important that we got it on-air before Christmas, he said, to get some of that pre- Christmas marketing dollar. If it had been delayed until January or February, we would likely have had to wait until Spring to get it up and running. The studio design was handled by Robert Coyne, the chief engineer for Bayshore Broadcasting. Once it was complete and we started to get walls in place, it made a great deal of sense to have Gary Hooper s team come in here and facilitate the actual studio build. Knowing Gary s history and some of the situations where he s put stations on the air in a relatively short time-line, I knew that if anyone could do it in a short window it would be Hooper s HP Services. In fact, they did. They had it on in about five weeks from the time that they started on the project. One of the things I believe will serve Bayshore in the long term is that we put in the best equipment. For example, there was some analog in the original proposal but we instead made everything digital. We went with imedia Touch because we believe it s the superior operating platform for radio stations. The technical and training support that Ron Paley s company offers is second to none. Ron Ron Paley Broadcast congratulates Above: Heather Gleason on air Below: Tony Hann on location Bayshore Broadcasting is creating waves in Orillia, Ontario, radio waves that is! Ron Paley Broadcast (RPB) and Wheatstone were honoured to supply the E1 IP Network System and processors for Sunshine s listeners enjoyment. A big thanks to the management of the station and HP Services who installed the product. ronpaleybroadcast.com (866) BROADCAST DIALOGUE Technology Insider April 5,

4 Taylor is probably their top trainer. He spent two to three weeks in his first visit training staff who d never worked with imedia Touch and then came back after we moved into the permanent studios to do follow-up training sessions. We use Wheatstone boards and Wheatstone sideboards in our new studio. Something else that Hooper brought to the table in his recommendations was the inter-connectivity of the five studios. Our production studio is a complete duplicate of master control so that we have the immediate capacity to switch to the production studio, if necessary. I had contractors from up to a halfdozen trades who were continuing to do work in here while we were broadcasting live. There was some time management that had to come into play there but, when all was said and done with a few Above: production studio Below: talk studio Above: master board Left: master control hiccoughs in-between, the product that came out of the box as of December 10 sounded as good then as it does today. Funnell says Hooper s team did three 21-hour days in a row the week of Sunshine 89.1 s open house to make sure that everything was as detailed as could be. Hooper told Broadcast Dialogue that the studio block consists of a production room, talk studio, on-air room, newsroom and voice tracking booth. The offices are: boardroom, general office, PD office, GM office, and sales desk area, with reception at the entrance and a tidy, well-equipped kitchen. The studio technical installation began, said Hooper, with installation of 10,000 feet of LAN cable distributed from the rack area located centrally to the operations and office areas. The wiring terminations are colour-coded in the patch panels to reflect the intended purpose of each jack; data, telephone, GPIB control, analogue audio and Wheatnet. The operations equipment backbone is a Wheatstone E1 system with two E1 consoles, and two newsroom Wheatstone sideboards from Ron Paley Broadcast. The Wheatstone audio over IP system offers versatility to the operation, both internally and for future control options between all Bayshore operations. The LANS provide a certified gigabit Wheatstone LAN, office LAN and drops and jacks to accommodate VOIP phone and for inevitable expansion. (Always much less expensive to do at the stage when construction is in progress.) The balance of the studio equipment lists the standard, rugged and reliable EV RE20 microphones, MIKA arms with the custom look BROADCAST DIALOGUE Technology Insider April 5,

5 YourGepco Connection in Canada AUDIO VIDEO FIBER NETWORK SMPTE Hybrid Fiber Products BULK CABLE BREAKOUT SYSTEMS CABLE ASSEMBLIES Multi-Channel Video System SPECIALTY PRODUCTS Gepco International is a brand of General Cable. added of aluminum RVA Communications risers, Studio Hub mic switches and headphone panels controlling the Wheatstone GPIO ports for talkback, mic muting and headphone audio. Vorsis M2 mic processors are the mic processors. The video monitors are ACER 20 with DVI feeds from the on-air, production, news, voice tracking and general use computers. The screen mounts are seven Flex innovative units with custom turned RVA bases to match the MIKA mic risers. Custom video switching allows one monitor to serve a number of functions. For instance, at the touch of a button, the talk studio monitor can present the on-air imedia Touch display, production room script/editing screen or an Internet display from a separate computer. The paperless studio for scripts is reality. Hooper also said that the Orillia build incorporated many new ideas and connectivity options including a wireless dedicated IP link between studios and transmitter site using uncompressed digital codec technology to get the sparkling AES audio to the Harris CD Z transmitter through a Vorsis FM 2000 processor. This same symmetrical 10 mbps connection provides Internet access to the studios and transmitter. Ross Kentner, reflecting on Bayshore s growth, recalled that the company had developed quite a nucleus in hometown Owen Sound with its three radio stations. Competitors would say four radio stations because Bayshore owns The Beach in nearby Port Elgin. Gradually, he said, we ve managed to spread out down as far as Goderich and over to Orillia all waterfront communities. To me, it s the greatest part of Ontario real estate. It is where people are gravitating toward for lifestyle, for new jobs, for retirement and for family fun when they want to holiday in Ontario. There has been significant growth in younger families moving to the Orillia area over the last 10 to 15 years. While Kentner said there might be a hokeyness to local full service radio, it takes immense professionalism to pull it off. It s not as simple as one might think. BD Visit us at the NAB SHOW, Booth #C9049 April 11th - 14th, 2011 Delco Wire & Cable Limited sales@delcowire.com East: West: BROADCAST DIALOGUE Technology Insider April 5,