Illinois Broadcaster GoCom Serves With 360 Systems

An Illinois station group with affiliates in three of the state’s markets is now running its commercial playout and half of its program content from three 360 Maxx 2400 video servers.

GoCom Media of Illinois, which owns and operates stations WRSP-TV (Springfield), WCCU (Urbana/Champaign) and WBUI (Decatur), has replaced outdated servers with new Maxx 2400s, operated under control of Sundance automation.

The group’s chief engineer, Scott Washburn, says that the three stations operate from a common master control with a limited amount of staffing and that reliability and support were key factors in the decision to go with 360 Systems.

“I chose the 360 Systems Maxx 2400 servers because they were affordable, run on an easy-to-use Linux OS, and are backed by great tech support,” Washburn said. “The Maxx’s interface is simple—initial set-up took me five minutes. And the remote workstation feature is handy. One day I ran the breaks for all three stations from my house for four hours, and it was seamless.”

All three of the servers are integrated with a single Telestream TrafficManager system, and content ingest is fully automated. The Maxx 2400 systems were built to Washburn’s specifications and delivered within after just two weeks to meet requirements associated with relocating the Decatur station. Washburn says that his staff ingests 50 about shows every day in real time and runs 30 playlists.