1,300 All India Radio workstations installed with Radio-Assist
Published: ASIA
INDIA: The national Indian radio broadcaster, All India Radio (AIR), has recently installed Netia’s Radio-Assist software suite on more than 1,300 workstations to support its national broadcast facilities and 48 local stations. Undertaken by Delhi-based systems integrator Progressive Infotech, the project has seen the manufacturer’s suite deployed at every major city in India, covering 99 per cent of the population.
‘The work performed by Progressive Infotech and Netia ensured that the Radio-Assist deployment met the demanding requirements of geographically distributed operations, as well as the challenges of providing content that engages AIR listeners across a large and diverse audience,’ said Gulshan Kharbanda, chief technology officer at Progressive Infotech. ‘We believe this project represented a significant improvement in AIR's production and broadcast capabilities, and we are confident that they can build on these capabilities to enrich the on-air product for their many listeners.’
The radio broadcaster is one of the largest in the world with regards to the diversity of languages it broadcasts. In total, it comprises 277 stations and covers nearly 97 per cent of the geographical area. The software deployed provides it with tools for acquisition, archiving, audio editing, scheduling, broadcasting and administration. The software also reportedly makes it easier for AIR to delver its programming in over 20 different languages and dialects thanks to its Unicode compatibility.
Following the installation project, Progressive Infotech worked with the manufacturer to provide system training and support as well as ground support at critical sites in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
‘The size of this Radio-Assist implementation is truly remarkable, and it demonstrates the extent to which Netia software can scale in supporting highly efficient radio production and broadcasting, despite the challenges of multilingual broadcasting across a massive geographic area,’ commented Benjamin Schvent, head of Asia Pacific operations at Netia. ‘The system running live now at AIR is an excellent model of the modern large-scale radio broadcasting operation.’