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Get Certified, Get Noticed with the new RCS Academy

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How did you get started in radio? Chances are that you hung around a station, then watched and learned from other people. But Drew Bennett, National Sales Manager of Scheduling Products at RCS says there are two things wrong with that approach. “First, it’s possible that the people you learned from didn’t know what they were doing. Second, if they did know, they might not tell you because they wanted to have the edge.”

Meaningful, formalized education in the broadcast industry has always been hard to come by. That’s why RCS has launched RCS Academy, a way for you to learn about GSelector, Zetta and Aquira, and get certified for what you know.

As Bennett explains, you don’t even need to leave home: “The courses are online and self-paced. They’re broken down into segments with an exam on each. Once you pass, you earn a micro-degree. For example, when you master the library section of GSelector, you get a library badge and micro-degree. When you have completed all the chapters, you can take the final exam. If you pass, you’re certified.” The cost for online courses ranges from $300-$600.

Bennett adds that there are numerous benefits to certification. You can order a diploma to hang on your wall, a lapel pin, and digital badge that can be used on professional sites such as LinkedIn. Your name and contact info are also listed in the RCS directory of ‘Super Users’, where potential employers can seek you out.

RCS Academy is rolling out in 2019. By the end of the first quarter, the GSelector course will be available online. That will be followed by comparable online courses on Zetta and Aquira. The next step will be moving the program to college campuses, as Bennett explains: “These courses will also be available for college credit. Our first campus will be Texas A&M in College Station, Texas, and we will continue to expand to other schools.” He adds that each college will determine the tuition fees for the courses.

A Deep-Dive into Disaster Recovery with Zetta

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Join RCS on November 28th at 11 EST on Facebook Live to learn how The World’s Largest Broadcast Software Company is leading the way with Cloud Based Disaster Recovery.

Our very own Zetta guru Nathan Mumford will be on Facebook Live showing you how Zetta can help you recover quicily and easily from any disaster and we’ll be taking your Zetta questions. Make sure you like our page here to get the latest updates on future live events from RCS.  Have a question about Zetta you’d like us to cover? Email live@rcsworks.com

RCS helps TEABBA to Broadcast From Paradise

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When we say that RCS software is used by stations on the furthest reaches of the planet, it’s no exaggeration. For this report, we will travel to Warruwi, Goulburn Island. It’s a tiny spec with about 300 inhabitants located 5 Km off the coast of the Northern Territory, Australia. Maung is the main language, and 90% of the population are Cook Islanders or Aboriginal. But despite the remoteness and size of Goulburn Island, it does have its own radio station.

TEABBAThe station is part of TEABBA, (Top End Aboriginal Bush Broadcasting Association) a group of 29 RIBS (Remote Indigenous Broadcast Stations) spread across the Northern Territory. They have begun to broadcast as a large community network. TEABBA airs regular programs from both its Darwin hub studio and the community stations by using dial-up program lines. However, the old analog dial-up modems have given way to the latest digital devices that can deliver broadcast quality programs over a regular phone line. Part of the massive infrastructure upgrade involves bringing the Internet to locations which have no access, or very limited access. At the same time, mono transmitters are being upgraded to stereo.

The Darwin hub utilizes Zetta and GSelector for automation and music scheduling. Aquira is slated to be online by the end of the year to add commercial integration. When the project is complete, logs will be created in Darwin with GSelector, and will be replicated out to the station in each market, which already has Zetta installed. Once Aquira comes online, commercials and community service announcements will be scheduled which target each market’s local issues. Two of the indigenous communities, Warruwi and Beswick, have already gone live, with the remainder to follow soon.

Zetta makes it easy for these RIB sites to broadcast over the entire TEABBA network. Stations currently build a “MiniLog” for the time that they are broadcasting to the network. Each of the 29 stations usually broadcasts 2-3 hours a week to the entire Northern Territory.

TEABBA is not the first indigenous broadcaster in Australia to use Zetta, GSelector and Aquira. They decided to go with RCS based on the excellent user feedback from their indigenous partner stations, Caama Radio (8KIN – Northern Territory), Kool N Deadly (3KND – Melbourne) and BlackStar (QRAM – Queensland). Together, these stations broadcast to over half of Australia.

China National Radio On Air With RCS

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China National Radio (CNR), China’s largest radio station group, with radio coverage encompassing the entire nation of 1.3 billion people. CNR’s Music Radio Channel is now powered by the latest RCS scheduling and playback systems, GSelector and Zetta.

The CNR group includes over 16 radio channels, with formats that include News, Traffic, Financial News and Music. In fact, the CNR Music Radio Channel, was the first radio station in China to use an RCS system back in November 2002, almost 16 years ago. The Music Radio Channel alone broadcasts a claimed listenership of over 700 Million people in China.

RCS has expanded its relationship with CNR, adding their Metro Radio Channel, a radio service only broadcast in the Beijing market.

Being the most prestigious radio station group in China and located in the capital city of Beijing, CNR is highly conservative and cautious with any new technology. After years of relationship-building and showcasing our latest software – particular its features and stability – RCS won CNR’s approval in installing an entire system upgrade at the end of 2017.

After months of logistics, data conversion, lengthy and multiple training sessions to make sure everyone was comfortable with our new system, our tireless and energetic Beijing team got CNR Music Radio Channel on air running our latest GSelector and Zetta software at midnight of April 10, 2018. As with any system upgrade there is a bit of apprehension at the beginning of a conversion, but our experienced team made sure the move was as smooth as possible. Channel Director, Mr. Mao, commented after the upgrade how easy the new system was compare to the old!

RCS is honored to have such a strong relationship with CNR throughout China and looks forward to another 16 years of working with the group as radio continues to evolve.

GSelector and Zetta Help Mountaineer Radio do the Best Mix in Southeast Oklahoma

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No matter where you go in the world, you can find RCS software hard at work, enabling stations to create that unique sound with GSelector, and execute their own variety of workflow with Zetta. Not only is RCS busy in exotic locations such as New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul, but also in less familiar destinations such as Wilburton, Oklahoma.

Here you’ll find Eastern Oklahoma State College, home of Mountaineer Radio. “The Mix” 93.1 FM serves the Red Oak, Wilburton, Hartshorne, McAlester area, while 104.9 FM serves the towns of Broken Bow and Idabel. These stations offer the “Best Mix” music programming that appeals to most audiences and ages. Music genres include top 40, light rock and light classic rock, adult contemporary, pop, and some of today’s cross-over country.

Many colleges and universities have their own radio stations, but one of the things that makes these two unique is that they are licensed as commercial. As General Manager and afternoon show radio personality Doug “Dougo” Sims explains, what seemed to be a liability at the start has turned out to be a huge asset.

“We had applied for a non-commercial FM license, but the one channel in our area was awarded to another applicant. We were disappointed, but then applied for, and were awarded a commercial license. Over the years, with university-wide financial downsizing, we’ve seen our operating budget cut by about 40 percent. Were it not for our advertising revenue, the university might have closed the stations down by now.”
Students in Eastern’s Mass Communication program are involved with the radio station, serving as interns and on-air personalities. They also produce news and weather reports, public service announcements and other programming. Students have the opportunity to select music, produce their own show, help with live remotes and provide play-by-play and color commentary during sports broadcasts.

As Sims recalls, when he started looking three and a half years ago, there were some specific criteria that he had in mind as he was selecting automation software for the stations. “It had to be user-friendly, easy for students to train on and to be affordable. We also wanted great features.”

Sims and his team looked at five different programs, but in the end, they settled on GSelector and Zetta.
“For us, the most important feature of GSelector is the voice tracking. It’s used several times throughout the day.” And while it’s easy to customize pages with Zetta, Sims has made simplicity his goal. “We use one setup for everyone, it helps keep things consistent. There are three live shows every day, and students step in to run things occasionally, so it has to be user friendly.”

For those times when things don’t go as they should, Sims give high marks to the RCS tech support team. “When we call with questions or issues, they’re always very helpful, and we get the problem resolved immediately. That’s important for us, because we have a small staff, and things can get backlogged pretty quickly if one person needs to spend a lot of time figuring out what’s wrong.”

In April, Sims and the Mountaineer Radio staff visited RCS in their booth at the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters convention in Tulsa. Sims took an immediate liking to Zetta2GO, a suite of applications that lets you control your Zetta Automation/Playout system from a smartphone or tablet. You can manipulate what’s on the air from any place with an Internet connection. “I’m especially excited about the potential to control Zetta while doing a remote broadcast,” adds Sims.

OWOW Rocks Cleveland with RCS GSelector and Zetta

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Once the broadband revolution began in the early 2000s, the race was on for stations to have an online presence. For most, it was a means to extend their brand, reach new audiences and possibly offer alternative programming. For stations that began as stand-alone streaming operations, however, the online environment brings unique challenges and opportunities. It should come as no surprise that RCS GSelector and Zetta meet those challenges head on.

oWOW in Cleveland OH is one such online station. In these days of big media, oWOW is 100% locally owned, programmed and operated, serving northeast Ohio with an eclectic mix of music and localism.

Steve Pappas is oWOW’s operations manager, as well as the afternoon drive DJ. He elaborates on some of the programming elements of this online-only station: “We present ourselves differently than conventional stations. The format is very music-intensive with little talk. When we do talk, it’s about lifestyle and local events. Our goal is to superserve northeast Ohio. That includes the combined market of 17 counties in and surrounding Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown. While the majority of our listeners are here, we also reach Ohio expatriates worldwide, so we really have a global audience.”

Pappas describes the station’s format as “the sweet spot between classic rock and indie rock”, that means a combination of rock, progressive pop, folk, reggae, blues, alt-country, and singer-songwriter. “We play the hits as well as other album cuts,” he says, adding that the outcome is that listeners never know what they’re going to hear.

oWOW takes two breaks per hour, at 15 and 45. There are just three commercials per break, then right back to music with no jingles. “We’ve found that this is beneficial both to advertisers and listeners,” says Pappas.

A format that is this eclectic demands an expansive library. oWOW has over 6,000 songs, with 5,000 active at any given time. GSelector is used for the scheduling, and Pappas has found it easy to customize the program to fit oWOW’s unique needs.

“We go deep into artist separation,” he explains. “For example, 25% of our playlist is comprised of female artists, but we like to mix it up, and not play three in a row. We also play reggae, but use GSelector to sound code local reggae artists differently than national. Also, we code local artists who are ready to break out nationwide differently, so we’re not playing local back-to-back.”

GSelector is also used at oWOW for some of the more traditional artist separations, such as not playing a John Lennon and Beatles song back to back, or Bruce Springsteen followed by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. GSelector always selects the best possible song for each position.

It also has the flexibility to accommodate all of oWOW’s unusual requirements. While many stations have different clocks for different dayparts, Pappas has also created seasonal clocks. With a library of over 6,000 songs, oWOW needs more music categories than most stations. GSelector lets you create as many as you need. Among the categories that Pappas has devised are Halloween, Christmas, Irish and summer. It also allows him to automatically adjust the library to achieve desired rotations without math or complex settings.

There are a number of countdown shows on oWOW, such as the Top 50 of 2017, and Pappas uses the analysis in GSelector to put those shows together, adding that it would be nearly impossible to do the same thing by hand. Analysis is also used to create the weekly ‘spin report’ of most played songs, which is posted on oWOW’s web site.

In addition to its regular fare of eclectic programming, oWOW has three special shows, Friday Night Live, Bluestime and Naked Brunch. The music for all these shows is scheduled on GSelector three to four weeks in advance. Most of the shows are voice-tracked, and personalities are able to get their shows done well ahead of time.

Zetta wasn’t the first choice for a playout system at oWOW, but it may be their last. Pappas explains, “Our original system couldn’t handle what we wanted to do with the format. Many of us working here were familiar with RCS Selector. So we decided to give GSelector and Zetta a try, and we never looked back. The two programs work together seamlessly. Any changes made in GSelector are instantly reflected in Zetta.”

Software is only as good as its tech support, and Pappas gives RCS high marks for the help available. “We always try and figure out problems on our own first, but when we can’t, the support we’ve received from RCS for both GSelector and Zetta has been thorough, knowledgeable and professional. When they’ve had to do research on a question, they always call back and make sure that we understand the answer.”

Pappas concludes. “GSelector and Zetta have been able to handle everything we’ve thrown at it.”

Zetta – On Air, Production and Programming Your Way

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What does automation mean to you?

When you’re in a small, medium or large enterprise broadcast operation, the word automation can mean different things to you. It can be everything in one box. Or, it can be on multiple sites to scale and distribute services horizontally. Perhaps you want to see everything that’s happening, all on one screen. Too much information? Then you just want to look at the piece you’re working on now. Maybe you’ve got a workflow that functions really well, too bad your automation system has other ideas. And how many times have you had to dash back to your computer when something went wrong, or missed an opportunity because that creative moment came when you were on the long commute home?

The great thing about RCSWork’s Zetta is none of that matters. Its modular design, combined with an ability to scale, integrate and create, perfect workflow, is limited only by your imagination.

Zetta has a lot of moving parts to work its magic. Behind the curtains, each function has a launcher app, which will restart a service if it stops unexpectedly. In other words, the Sequencer is separate from the audio playout, and separate from the user interface as well.

Your workflow should be what works for you. The RCS Living Log® offers an advanced level of integration which enables an infinite variety of workflow concepts. And there’s no need to wait for a refresh, because updates are instantly reflected everywhere.

We know, the most carefully crafted automation schedules can crash and burn for any number of reasons. But receiving a text message during your lunch break shouldn’t be cause for alarm. With Zetta2GO on your smartphone or tablet, you can control your Zetta Automation/Playout system from any place there’s an Internet connection. Then you can finish that burrito.

Vastly Improved Reconciliation Options in Zetta 4.3

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Proper reconciliation of aired material – be it songs, spots or anything else – has always been an important part of radio operations worldwide.  In many countries, for example, commercials will be scheduled by the traffic department and aired by the playout system; but until they are properly reconciled back to the traffic system, the billing will not be performed, leading to a loss of revenue.  Similarly, song performances not submitted to GSelector will be missing in association reports which, in turn, could lead to a fine for the offending station.

Thankfully, Zetta has benefited from real-time live log reconciliation with GSelector for many years.  Any time a song, link or spot scheduled in station’s log gets fired, the corresponding event’s status in GSelector gets set to ‘playing’ (and ‘played’ upon completion).  This benefits the programming department, as generating schedules for tomorrow will take into account what happened today. As a safety net, Zetta also provides an optional full-day reconciliation feature which pushes entire past day’s schedule over to GSelector at day’s closing.

There has been a missing piece in the Reconciliation puzzle where on-air playback outside of a station’s log (via the Sequencer) was not being reconciled – specifically, playback triggered from Hot Keys, Stacks or Z-Player has never been reported to GSelector.  Zetta 4.3 bridges this gap by offering a robust solution that will satisfy the needs of even the most demanding clients worldwide.

First of all, a new concept was introduced to Hot Keys, Stacks and Z-Player: all three modules now offer new “On-Air/Audition Mode” button which toggles between on-air playout operation (“On-Air” mode) and local auditioning (“Audition” mode).  Only playback in the “On-Air” mode is applicable for reconciliation. Playback in the “Audition” mode not only is not applicable for reconciliation, but has a few other important properties. Audio is routed to the ‘Audition’ audio output, then Splits control and Hot Sparing, if set up, are ignored.  The mode can be changed by clicking the button in the Zetta user interface, but also externally (e.g. keyboard shortcut or GPIO) by triggering Hotkey.ToggleAudition/Stacks.ToggleAudition/ZPlayer.ToggleAudition commands:

Zetta hot keys

Zetta

Also, a new Computer Configuration setting controlling the default On-Air/Audition Mode has been introduced:

zetta settings panel

This will be the mode used by default for any newly loaded Hot Keys, Stacks and Z-Player modules.  Should the site Supervisor choose to ban a specific user from toggling the mode, a new user right “Toggle On-Air/Audition Button” is now available as well.

However, firing audio from Hot Keys while in the “On-Air” mode is not sufficient – a few other tweaks are needed.  Under Station Configuration, pick a station and select the Asset Types tab; there, select the Asset Type you want to configure Reconciliation for and choose modules you want to reconcile playback from: Hot Keys, Stacks and Z-Player.  You can also define minimum playback length or percentage of runtime that constitutes “on-air playback” – when met, the aired event gets injected into the corresponding station’s log (on playback stop if threshold met), with proper airtime and runtime, to be reconciled to GSelector right away!

zetta radio asset settings

Once everything is set up properly, any audio fired outside of the Sequencer will be injected into Logs with a green flag indicating a play in Hot Keys, Stacks or Z-Player. If you hover over the icon it will tell you what module was it injected from.  Should users prefer hiding any injected events, they can do so by unchecking the ‘Injected’ option under the Logs | Filter menu.

zetta logs menu

While there are many benefits to using Zetta integrated with GSelector, for those who want to reconcile via a flat file, the functionality explained above will work just as well.  All of this (and more!) is available in Zetta version 4.3.

Zetta’s First Disaster Recover Test in Malaysia

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For many years, the Malaysia radio market has been dominated by the RCS V15 Master Control playout and Selector music scheduler suite. Because clients are very comfortable and familiar with these great products, there has to be a good reason for happy customers to upgrade to our amazing 21st Century Zetta and GSelector combo.

This year we have broken that hypothetical glass ceiling and start the rollout of Zetta and GSelector in the Malaysia market. Ironically, one of the drivers has been Zetta’s ability to deal seamlessly with . . . disaster!

Media Prima became our third Zetta/GSelector deployment this year. Like more and more radio companies, having robust and proven Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Plans (BCP) has become more and more important as part of their overall security preparedness.

At Media Prima, we use Zetta site replication and ZCast to replicate the content and programming for their DR/BCP needs.

Media Prima’s first DR/BCP drill following the Zetta installation took place at 5am, November 1st when a notification was sent out to the announcer that they needed to start broadcasting from the BCP site.

The announcer duly arrived at the BCP premises and we’re happy to say that Zetta did the job flawlessly by auto-sending all the Assets, Logs, VT, Segue and Commercial load to the BCP site. The BCP operation ran for the planned 18 hours without incident. No need for data to be manually restored from a backup in order to activate audio playout at the BCP site.

From our point of view, the success of this sort of meticulous DR/BCP drill proves how far advanced Zetta is compared with other playout systems. Features like Zetta site replication and ZCast have eliminated a lot of DR/BCP logistical challenges that radio companies encountered in the past.

As in the rest of the world, Malaysia is joining the switch to Zetta/GSelector.

Zetta Enhancement

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Building a truly capable, multi-station system with no artificial restrictions was one of the core ingredients added when Zetta was conceived more than a decade ago.

There are many benefits for multiple stations to live inside of a single system, and one of them is the ability to share resources. With Zetta you can add a new song or commercial once and then decide, on a per station basis, whether the asset is available and playable (active) on a given station. But audio asset management is not the only area where we embraced the concept: for example, users can create any number of so-called “Banks” under Hot Keys or Stacks modules, and these Banks can be used by all stations in the system – useful for generic sound effects, newscast items etc. This works great for many sites but could also get out of hand if way too many banks exist in the system – and the number is growing every day – finding the correct Bank in a long list may become too cumbersome.

In the latest Zetta version 4.2 we added a few enhancements that will drastically improve the user experience in this area. First of all, you can just click into the Bank selector and start typing; the Banks that match your text will immediately show up and you can pick the desired one either by clicking it or arrowing down on your keyboard and hitting Enter. Even on a system with hundreds or even thousands of Banks you can find the right one within no more than a couple of seconds.

Secondly, we substantially improved Bank management capabilities. By default, all newly created Banks are available on all stations in the system. If the number of Banks or stations you operate is fairly low, you may be perfectly fine with the default behavior. If, however, things are getting unmanageable, we now give you powerful tools that let you assign Banks to one or multiple stations. A Bank that is not assigned to a station will not be available for the station selected in the module (yes, this is rather similar to the asset activation model mentioned above).

On the screenshot below, a Hot Key bank called “Alex’s Weekend Show” is assigned to two stations: RCS Hot AC and Classic Rock. In addition to this one-station-at-a-time assignment scenario you can also “mass-assign” a Bank to a group of stations in one shot, via the Organizations assignment (Mighty Mike and Standard on the screenshot). In this model, instead of explicitly specifying a station, you indirectly choose a collection of stations by selecting an Organization (which stations are members of the given organization is defined under Configuration | Organizations). Through a single Organization, you can easily assign a Bank to many stations in one shot. As shown in the example below, you can also select multiple organizations; you can even combine both Station and Organization assignments on the same Bank.

Finally, as you will notice in Zetta 4.2, there are a number of other tweaks and enhancements in this area of the user interface. For example, it is now very easy to modify properties of all existing banks via the Edit button) and, all of the capabilities covered above are not limited to Hot Keys only – the same functionality is now also available for another popular module, Stacks.

This is just one of the many enhancements added in Zetta Version 4.2. Please check out rcscommunity.com for a full list of enhancements in this version and do not hesitate to ask questions or submit suggestions for future enhancements.