OKLAHOMA CITY—BeckTV assisted KWTV with its move to its new Century Center building here, providing design, engineering and installation services. The Griffin Media station went live from the new facility Sunday, Nov. 13.
"What a year, starting from a blank slate to now operating in a world-class media center — Griffin Media," said Trevor Wiseman, KWTV vice president of technology. "From project management, design, procurement [and] logistics… to integration, the BeckTV team provided their world-class expertise across multiple disciplines and navigated us through many challenges smoothly without disrupting on-air operations.”
At its original facility for more than 60 years, the station’s move to downtown Oklahoma City involved upgrading what in some cases was decades-old broadcast systems and upgrading to a new state-of-the-art studio set design, BeckTV said.
Besides serving as the new home of the station, the facility now serves as the headquarters for Griffin Media. The station went live with its new news production system four days after going on-air from its new master control, it said.
Daily broadcast operations started immediately, and over the following days some existing equipment in the old facility was fully shut down and transitioned to the new facility.
The transition was complicated and involved hours of strategic planning, coordination, installation, testing, training and show rehearsals. To ensure it went smoothly, BeckTV maintained a two-engineer crew with six technicians on site to install, commission and support all of the new and repurposed equipment, it said.
BeckTV’s engineering and design work for the new facility began in 2021. Onsite integration work started in June 2022, it said,
The new facility includes:
- Evertz routing with an integrated enterprise multiviewer and TDM audio router
- Evertz master control switcher and airpath
- Clear-Com intercom
- G&D KVM
- Avid video production servers
- Ross camera robotics
- Sony production switcher and ELC automation systems
- Calrec Audio console
- Imagine Communications master control playout and automation systems
- Custom BeckTV consoles
"Moving from an existing broadcast facility across town to a new station with brand new technology is always a challenge," said Brendan Cline, BeckTV director of engineering. "Ongoing, productive, focused communications are key to executing a successful project, especially on such a massive scale.”
More information is available on the BeckTV website.
