Matt Allen, our newest master control operator.
SHREVEPORT, LA.—When a TV station is almost 60 years old, that is saying something, and this year KTBS-TV celebrated 59 years of broadcasting.
Owned and operated by the Wray family of Shreveport, we serve 28 counties and parishes in east Texas, northwest Louisiana, southeast Oklahoma and southern Arkansas. The station is and is one of the few in the country that can still claim local ownership and community identity.
Recently we had to replace our Avid (Sundance) automation system, as the company announced they would no longer market the product after this year and would stop supporting it after five years. We were already considering adding two additional ancillary channels to our existing five and it didn’t make sound business sense to purchase additional hardware and software for a system with a very finite end-of-life.
MOVING INTO ‘CHANNEL-IN-A-BOX’
We began searching for a replacement and compared products from several companies. Although we’d been very pleased with our existing system and server, we were interested in learning more about the “channel-in-a-box” systems. It soon became apparent that this new approach would be the right choice for us.
We ultimately selected Florical’s automation package and we are definitely pleased with our choice. A big part of our decision was based upon the commitment expressed to our station by the top management at Florical. It was clear what we could expect from this partnership and we have come to realize that every detail has been met without compromise.
The Florical system is in many ways very similar to Sundance, so the learning curve for our personnel wasn’t as steep as it might have been. Not only did we find the products similar, but the level of support is the same as we had with our previous systems.
We purchased Florical’s Acuitas because its architecture allows us to play out two channels from each Florical AirBoss while also providing redundancy in the event of a failure.
SUPPORT AFTER THE SALE
The Acuitas system integrated smoothly with our router, as well as with other equipment in master control and the bundled hardware and software package was a big plus. Having a turnkey solution removed many of the complexities of the installation. I would be remiss to state that the Florical system was installed without issues, but I can truthfully say that when problems arose, the Florical team put the resources in place to quickly resolve our issues. It’s great not to have to work with multiple suppliers any longer; when an issue arises, one call to Florical is all that’s required.
As a testament to the Florical system, we recently experienced a power outage that lasted more than two hours. When power was restored, all the Florical servers returned online and the automation system was operational in a matter of minutes.
Anyone looking for an automation solution should definitely include Florical in their vendor search.
Dale Cassidy is chief engineer at KTBS-TV and has been with that operation for more than 16 years. He may be contacted atdcassidy@ktbs.com.
For additional information, contact Florical at 352-372-8326 or visitwww.florical.blacklightnewmedia.com.
