Zetta

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.

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.

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.”