A new broadcast production facility has been built to house the KOTV and KQCW stations, and provide fibre lines to sister station KWTV. At its centre is a Solid State Logic C10 HD Compact Broadcast Console, chosen to handle the audio for news, weather and specialty programming.
Designed to streamline production resources for statewide news coverage, the facility in Tulsa links to KWTV in Oklahoma City.
‘We wanted a console that was very capable, but was also cost-effective and backed by a manufacturer with a solid reputation and years of broadcast experience – that led us to the C10,’ says John Quesnel, Director of Production for KOTV and KQCW. ‘Several of our engineers have had good experiences freelancing with the larger C100 HDS and we even had the SSL C10 Broadcast Equipment Demonstration Vehicle visit our facility for an extensive hands-on session. We are an HD, AES-embedded house and the C10 gives us the kind of flexibility and capability that we need to support a large news set.’
The new facility has one large 5,525-sq-ft studio with associated production and audio control rooms. The expansive news set is broken down into subsets to accommodate different programming. Additionally, the studio features a large news anchor area, three smaller news presentations sets, an interview set and speciality sets for entertainment presentations or commercial production. The C10 is used to produce more than seven hours of news and speciality programming per day.
‘We use the one-touch set-up recall on the C10 to streamline our workflow through the different news and non-newscast programs we produce,’ Quesnel continues. ‘Because we are located in tornado alley, weather is a very important element for us, so that particular area of the set is very large and comprehensive. We have a standard microphone set-up for the area that we can easily call up for breaking emergency weather coverage. Beyond news programming, we also have a full kitchen set for cooking segments and a stage set for presentations ranging from live music and fashion to the DIY hardware guy. The C10 has been an excellent choice to handle audio for this type of multitasking facility.’
The C10 is supported by three Alpha-Link 8RMP remote mic-pre units and five Alpha-link Live-R I/O units, and was ordered with the Dialogue Automix option. As the station relies on many people to run the console, having a user levels system that tailors the features available for control to the skill set of individual operators is a key component for the team.
‘We have engineers operating the console that have varying degrees of experience, so the C10 offers us the opportunity to lock out certain features when a less experienced person is scheduled to run a preset program,’ Quesnel says. ‘This console gives us big board power at a reasonable price.’
More: www.solidstatelogic.com
