WHY THE NEWS IS BOSS AT WMAL
ABC news station getting 99.999% Uptime from NewsBoss
The NewsBoss Automated Newsroom System has been the choice of
ABC Radio owned and operated stations since 1999.
When hardware components of the unsupported Basys system, (circa 1989) collapsed
into an irreparable state, ABC stations in Washington, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago
and Detroit were forced to take drastic action to keep the surviving system operational.
The need for a reliable, cost-effective and modern system coincided
neatly with ABC's plans to connect all stations to a corporate LAN, and several major
equipment upgrades planned for individual stations.
Presentations in New York from distributor Broadcast Electronics (BE) proposed the NewsBoss
solution against eight other vendors.
The bid requirements listed system reliability as the first priority.
The system also needed to easily handle assignments and incorporate a custom-developed
instant messaging system.
In order to speed up the transfer process, the ABC stations requested a way to transfer
necessary data from the old Basys computer into the new system.
The simplicity and stability of the NewsBoss system, along with the flexibility
to meet custom requirements, made NewsBoss the obvious choice according to John Matthews,
News Director for Washington based WMAL.
"NewsBoss was the right scale of solution, it provided answers to problems
we faced in 1999 without complicating the issues," notes Mr. Matthews.
"The beautiful simplicity of the system compared highly against other offerings.
Instead of ‘dumbed down’ TV technology, NewsBoss offers a dedicated solution for radio environments.
It needs no proprietary hardware, uses standard .wav file audio technology and offers system wide
access to all text and audio from any workstation.
Since installation there has been virtually no need for support, and on these rare occasions,
vendor responsiveness has been exceptional".
Serving the 8th largest U.S. market, and consistently performing in the top 10
against 53 competitors is tough business.
Newscasts are delivered twice an hour, 16 hours a day, and represent a critical aspect of the
market position enjoyed by WMAL.
The NewsBoss newsroom system provides all of the tools required to service the daily needs of the
10- member WMAL news team.
Outside of the news team, 35 other WMAL staff use NewsBoss to access news wire services,
perform limited audio editing and manage their workflow.
A further 15 professionals on the sister FM station also use the system.
A dozen workstations are set up in the WMAL newsroom, equipped with PC’s, RAMKO
switchers and telephones, all configured to provide a total work environment for the news team.
Two are equipped with both cassette and reel-to-reel decks, along with NewsBoss, in order to dub
audio material to NewsBoss from analog tape.
A separate sound booth is also equipped with NewsBoss for recording.
Early management concerns about how well the staff would adapt to using a new
system were quickly placated.
With few exceptions, the intuitive, Windows-based NewsBoss system rapidly became part of
day-to-day operations at WMAL.
Training was provided by Desktop Technologies and carefully planned to ensure that the
transition from Basys to NewsBoss did not interfere with the station's normal schedule.
The positive results of working with NewsBoss were evident almost as soon
as the system was in place, with an immediate improvement in time management.
The change to digital audio storage relieved the news team of finding, cueing, and erasing
the old analog carts.
Anchors were able to work on their own edits and read their newscasts from computer screens
instead of printing scripts and playing carts.
The result was innumerable man hours saved and a higher quality, more reliable news service.
During the attacks on New York and Washington last year, effective use of
time and delegation of resources were a must.
As a major provider of news services, WMAL scrambled all available personnel onto the streets
to ensure complete coverage of the events as they unfolded during the day.
Uptime for NewsBoss was critical.
During the early hours of the attacks, WMAL’s on-air talk hosts were immersed
in scanning wires and relaying new information as it became available;
the wire browsing tools and on-screen tab system came to the fore in this environment.
The rapid-fire turnaround of audio also proved to be critical.
As events continued, the lapse between recording, editing, and playing audio to air was reduced
to a matter of seconds.
NewsBoss also automatically recorded network news audio, saving WMAL the resources usually
required to manually roll tape.
With vast amounts of audio and text material gathered over hours, days and weeks,
NewsBoss provided a simple and rapid way of archiving and organizing all materials for
instant playback at any moment.
John Matthews credits the NewsBoss system with delivering zero-failure
performance under a significantly increased load during the September crisis, saying
"if the attacks had occurred on September 11, 1999 we would have been hard pressed to keep up
and our on-air product would definitely have suffered as a result.
The dependability of the NewsBoss software system and the speed it provides to make our
jobs easier actually enhanced our ability to put the story to air.
NewsBoss was right in step with our needs the whole time."
May 2002
