After spending decades in the publishing business, Dubai-based English-language newspaper giant, Gulf News could no longer resist the temptation to take a share of the Middle East broadcasting pie. Last year, Gulf News took over two English-language channels, Radio 1 and 2 from Emirates Media Inc. By the beginning of this year, it launched a brand new digital facility at its headquarters in Dubai to accommodate the two channels. With the launch of this facility, which went on air on the night of January 14, Gulf News Broadcasting (GNB), the broadcasting arm of Gulf News, was born.
The facility currently has four production studios. Two are used to run Radio 1 and Radio 2 while the third and the fourth have been retained for future expansion, which, might accommodate more radio channels or be used for news production. The fourth, however, is presently being used as backup in case one of the other stations fail.
“What we have here is the latest technology for radio in the broadcasting industry,” says Mutaz Taleb Besiso, stations manager, GNB. Besiso, who has been in radio for more than 12 years, and assisted in building radio facilities in Palestine, Jordan and Muscat, oversees the operational structure at GNB. “If you walk into any modern studio in any part of the world, you will find that what they have is what we have. We have ensured that there is no technological gap with the rest of the world and to that effect, we have invested in state-of-the-art equipment that is also capable of accommodating future expansion,” he adds.
A walk through the facility confirms what Besiso has said. The main production studio at GNB is fitted with a Yamaha Multitrack digital mixer and DigiDesign ProTools for multitrack editing and production. This studio is the bigger of the two production studios being used to run the two radio stations. The mixer in this room allows for multiple I/O to the ProTools editor and production tool. Included is a Waves Native Diamond software add-on bundle for the ProTools. “This gives the producer all of the tools he would need for the production and editing of material for the station and its client,” says Muntazir Pyarali, head of technical services at GNB.
Other equipment includes Rode microphones, Sennheisser headphones, Vegas editing software, Genelec speakers and CD/MD players.
A significant part of the kit is a console from Klotz Digital. “The AEON is slim, easy to use and flexible with the added option of fibre optic interfacing to the station central router. The console surface is split into one eight-fader module and one four-fader module, which incorporates the monitoring module. This is a fully digital audio mixing console and includes control surface and separate digital audio matrix,” explains Pyarali. “The audio matrix is also based on TDM technology and includes all console inputs, outputs and DSP functions. For controlling external devices, this console includes 8+8 internal GPI I/O and is expandable in the future. The console’s matrix is modular and equipped with 10 free assignable slots for audio interface cards,” he adds.
The system can be upgraded further to accommodate a complete audio network, comprising mixing consoles and main audio matrix all in the same digital TDM audio format. Essential information is made available to the DJ using a 17″ LCD screen positioned in front of him.
An important part of this facility is the Master Control Room (MCR), which includes several solutions from different vendors. At the core of the MCR lies a routing matrix. The MCR operators have complete control of the matrix.
In the meantime, the studios and the MCR router are connected by means of a fibre optic cable.
The core router is based on Klotz’s Vadis product. All sources are available on a TDM bus, which, in this case, is linked by fibre to the studio console main frames. This reduces inter area wiring to a minimum.
Silence detection is also built into the main transmission outputs and can detect silence within the TDM timeslots for each station. This can be used to alert the SMS paging system as well as to reboot the automation if desired. The router is fully modular in design and incorporates sophisticated fault monitoring features and the audio interface cards are hot swappable. The hardware is geared for future expansion as well.
The DSP provides Level Metering, Programme Fail Alarms, Mixing, Mono Making, Stereo Splitting, Dynamics Processing, Equalization (Parametric), GAIN Control, Signal distribution and splitting can be incorporated into the router design thus minimising the use of external equipment for audio distribution.
The MCR also houses five HP servers. Three are reserved for each radio station while one handles traffic and scheduling and the other serves as a backup. Each of these servers have two Digigram cards. As each card supports four channel outputs, each server can support eight channels.
Other solutions include Sonifex and On Air systems as well as Denon receivers. The MCR includes delay units that enable GNB to spike offensive speech from callers without any break in the transmission.
“This is one of the best MCRs that I have ever seen,” says Besiso. “It has the latest technology in 24-hour recording in which you can go back to any second in the last nine months. It has a delay system that can cut and paste a whole eight seconds of air time if needed. All of these things help us to facilitate our operation,” he adds.
Connectivity to the MCR is via a fibre optic cable. Sources such as automation, OB send/returns and talkback are meant to be routed via fibre to the studio. Local feed sources include microphones and CD/MD players. “The outboard equipment chosen here is appropriate for the studio in terms of digital i/o and build quality. In the event of fibre failure, alternate digital and analogue tielines have been provided,” explains Pyarali.
GPI interfaces are supplied to all areas such as On Air lights, automation PCs, intercom T/B and monitoring muting. “The GPIs are fully configurable and can be used for switching and assignment purposes as required. The flexibility of the design means that new equipment and facilities can be integrated at any time without major re-wiring or disruption to the station’s operation,” explains Pyarali.
A dual digital telephone hybrid is also available in each studio. This can take up to 12 callers at any given time with two being on air or conference at one time. Caller information is also provided to the radio jockey (RJ) on a 17″ LCD VDU. Radio 1 has an additional booth to accommodate three or four extra guests in the event of talk shows. GNB runs the stations on RCS software. The project design was made almost a year ago.
“The implementation, however, began six months ago,” explains Besiso. “We went live on air with the full set up on January 14 morning. The transition was very smooth and we did not have any second of dead air. This is because the technical team planned the whole thing well.”
The technical team includes Narayanan Sathyaseelan, a 40-year-old veteran in the radio business, who has been with EMI for the last 33 years, and worked as technical consultant on this project. Sathyaseelan quietly guides the direction of GNB.
In this case, although the channels continue to transmit in analogue format, the stations as well as the links are fully digital. “The facility has been readied for digital transmission. As soon as Gulf News gets its own transmitter, they will be ready to go digital,” he says. Gulf News currently uses EMI’s transmitters but it may have its own in the future. Perhaps one of the bigger challenges for GNB lay in moving from an old location to a new one.
“Today, the information to set up a radio station is only a few clicks away and sourcing equipment is only a couple of phones calls away,” says Besiso. “What proved to be a big challenge was transiting from an old location to a new one with totally new equipment. Another significant challenge lay in training our presenters to use the new equipment. Fortunately, they have used similar equipment and if you have the basic know how, you won’t have trouble adapting to new equipment. We made sure that our team had ample training to work on the new equipment before we went on air,” he adds.
A close look at the facility shows that Gulf News has invested at least US $2million into merely building this facility although Besiso is not willing to divulge actual figures. “Suffice to say that GNB has injected enough investment to sustain a complete state-of-the-art setup. We needed to have on-air studios, fully equipped and operational on January 14 along with the backup and the spare parts we’d need in the next year or so. We have done this. We also have additional assets that would be necessary for GNB to move forward.”
Although at this point, Besiso is not willing to share where GNB is heading, he is quick to assure that the facility is not going to stop with two radio stations. “We have many plans but we want to make sure that any step forward will be technically secured and covered in terms of feasibility so that we understand where we are heading. We might also be acquiring a TV station.
All possibilities are open. If we do not find something that we can improve, we might have something of our own. For now, what we have is radio. We have all the ingredients necessary to put the radio business together starting from the business environment, advertising know how, connecting to clients, the psychology of radio and presenting. And we believe that we will make a success of this,” he adds.
Judging by the investment that has gone into this facility and the fact that Gulf News Broadcasting has factored in future expansion, there is no doubt that it will be announcing more radio channel launches in the future, and perhaps, a TV channel as well. The question now is whether it will move a step ahead of the other broadcasters and go with High Definition.
Follow us on
