Quincy Newspapers Inc. has standardized on the Volicon Observer media logging and monitoring solution for its entire group of 13 stations across the Midwest.
To date, four-channel Volicon Observer systems with 13 months of storage have been implemented at eight QNI stations, with the remaining five stations expected to come online later.
The Observer systems provide a digital, file-based replacement for the stations’ former VHF tape-based systems, which were inefficient and lacked flexibility. Now station personnel can access the Observer at any time and from any computer in the network via the system’s Web browser interface. With 24-hour video monitoring, engineers are able to locate and troubleshoot transmission errors rapidly. In addition, the archived content provides important validation that the stations are in compliance with FCC regulations such as closed captioning, as well as contracts with performance rights organizations such as BMI and ASCAP.
“I’m a true believer in the Volicon Observer. It has drastically improved our corporate processes for evaluating the quality of our broadcasts and providing compliance reporting, and the stations are completely committed to the system; they’ve been using it effectively from the beginning,” said Brady Dreasler, director of capital, engineering, and facilities at QNI, based in Quincy, Ill. “Of the products we evaluated, the Observer was head and shoulders above the others for its long-term storage capacity, ability to monitor multiple channels simultaneously and remotely, as well as alarms and notifications for alerting people at any time and anywhere if a problem needs to be corrected.”
At the corporate level, the Observer enables QNI to monitor its stations’ newscasts remotely and compare them, side by side, with those of its competitors. “At any given time, and from any desktop on our network, we can log into one of our stations’ Observer systems to monitor what’s going on in the field,” said Dreasler. “It’s also an important tool for us to provide verification to our advertisers, complete with a clip showing exactly when their spots were aired.”
Quincy employs more than 900 people serving markets in 14 states. It operates KTIV (Sioux City, Iowa); KTTC and KXLT (Rochester, Minn.); KWWL (Waterloo, Iowa); WAOW (Wausau, Wis.); WGEM (Quincy); WKOW (Madison, Wis.); WQOW (Eau Claire, Wis.); WREX (Rockford, Ill.); WSJV (South Bend, Ind.); WVVA (Bluefield, W. Va.); WXOW (La Crosse, Wis.); and WYOW (Eagle River, Wis).
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