HARMAN Studer has announced its major contract with the BBC to deliver approximately 85 OnAir 3000 digital consoles has been fulfilled, marking a milestone in the BBC's massive infrastructure rebuilding project.
The installation signals an achievement as the contract was first announced three years ago as the second phase of the London headquarters rebuild, including the creation of the new W1 Centre.
The Centre is now home for all of the BBC's national radio networks, as well as a focus for the national and international news operations. The move brings the company's World Service and domestic service in one venue for the first time. In addition to the W1 Centre, part of the consoles delivery also went to the BBC's flagship locations at MediaCityUK.
The studios have been equipped with a variety of Studer OnAir 3000 frames; six fader boards are used for the simplest operations, often staffed by a single operator, while 36 fader desks were built into the larger General Purpose studios. A number of the units are configured with RTW TM7 TFT meters, which electronically show the standard BBC PPM "moving needle" ballistics.
Many of the studios feature adjacent kiosks known as Voice Points, operated by ten journalists. These small spaces are equipped with OnAir 3000 modules that are linked to the main studio control desk. Studer Editor Modules, extended three-fader modules that include a subset of monitoring and talkback functionality, were placed in each of these kiosks. The BBC mandate included a provision stipulating that in a function which allows over-control of the consoles from an adjacent studio had to be included in all the self operated studios.
More information on HARMAN can be found on the company's website.
