TULSA, OKLA.—KOTV and KQCW, owned by Griffin Communications as CBS and CW affiliate stations respectively, has opened a new broadcast facility that relies on a Solid State Logic C10 HD Compact Broadcast Console to cover audio for news, weather and specialty programming.
The Tulsa, Okla.-based production facility houses both stations, but also has dedicated fiber lines between it and sister station KWTV in Oklahoma City to streamline production resources for statewide news coverage.
“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,” said John Quesnel, director of production for KOTV and KQCW. “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 production facility has one large 5,525-square-foot studio with associated production and audio control rooms. The news set in the studio is broken down into subsets to accommodate different programming needs, and the C10 is used to produce over seven hours of news and specialty programming daily.
“We use the one-touch setup recall on the C10 to streamline our workflow through the different news and non-newscast programs we produce,” said Quesnel. “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 setup 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 self-contained, without the need for a mainframe in a climate-controlled machine room. The console 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.
“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,” added Quesnel.
