The Lawo name is becoming increasingly common in the on-air studios and production facilities of Arabian radio stations. Among them, Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) Group broadcasts to Dubai and beyond from its headquarters in Dubai – including to Saudi-Arabia and Iraq.
The group’s MBC Radio division operates six studios, which are equipped with Lawo sapphire mixing consoles, as well as regional studios outside of the Emirate. The Riyadh studio has recently moved into self-op radio programming, using a Lawo 20-key panel for remote control of mixing consoles in Dubai, and a TCP/IP line for signal transfer. The feed is duplicated to a codec and landline, as backup to the satellite connection.
The Dubai radio production complex – which has been on air since summer 2013 – comprises three studios for producing MBC FM, Panorama and Iraq radio programming. These studios boast four 20-fader sapphire consoles complete with overbridges for radio on-air production, and a Nova17 MkII router to network all of the consoles and act as an audio router. A fourth Lawo-equipped studio operates as production studio but can also serve as an on-air studio, while Studios 5 and 6 serve as backup studios.
Each of the six studios can be connected to any of the six networks, and the switching can be managed either centrally or autonomously by each individual studio. Six different commercial playout streams are supplied centrally by the router to the respective networks, with full automation. The commercial playouts and studios are supplied automatically, via the radio automation system, including providing the correct monitoring in the various studios. MBC’s central room for panel discussions and talk shows can be connected to different on-air studios at the push of a button. The networking facility allows the on-air control rooms to be transferred to another studio without restrictions in operation. Both the central router and the Lawo studios are fully redundant in operation, with automated switching to the redundant control and audio system.
‘We have been using the Lawo sapphire consoles and Nova router for about a year now,’ says MBC Broadcast Manager, Bassam Faour. ‘The set-up makes our every-day work so much easier and efficient. The sapphires and the Nova run absolutely smoothly and are very reliable. They are also highly user-friendly, and failsafe in their configuration and design. To me, they are masterpieces of German engineering and quality, backed by fast, committed and efficient support.’
More: www.lawo.com
