After experimenting with the technology at several of its stations, and coming to the conclusion that bonded cellular signal transmission is reliable and cost-effective enough to handle its daily news production, Raycom, owners of 30 stations that produce news, has deployed technology from LiveUin the from of backpack systems, laptop software and mobile phone apps. An Apple iPhone app (called “LU-Smart “) in particular is used more often than the stations had originally envisioned.
David Burke vice president and Chief Information Officer, Raycom Media, said LiveU’s proprietary antenna arrays “offered more consistency in tough areas” and the ability to control deployed units from the field or remotely from the station.
“Our original plan was to deploy LiveU units in only less than half of our 30 news producing markets, and then expand to other stations over time,” Burke said. “However, LiveU was so well-received by these initial stations, we decided to expand to all of our news-producing markets in 2013.”
In addition, by standardizing company-wide on the LiveU solution, Raycom stations can seamlessly share content between stations.
“In recent years, our local stations have expanded the number of hours of locally produced content, in part because of the rising cost of syndicated content, as well as to meet viewer preferences,” Burke said. “Local news is a significant part of our programming schedule and revenue stream. With LiveU, we can originate and produce more live and original content.”
For all of its news-producing stations Raycom chose the LU70 backpack system, LU-Smart app for phones, and LU-Lite software for laptops.
Raycom is one of the nation's largest broadcasters and owns and/or provides services for 53 television stations in 36 markets and 18 states (reaching 12.6 percent of U.S. television households).
