Maximising workflow efficiency, making money from mobile content and marketing the country’s hundreds of new radio stations were some of the key topics of discussion at this year’s Broadcast India conference in Mumbai this week. radioinfo reports on conference highlights and new products at the exhibition.

In the home of Bollywood, lights, sounds, dance and colour are the order of the day, and the 2010 conference and its associated exhibition reflected that feel.

Key points of interest to radio broadcasters from Broadcast India were:

In a session called  Who is eyeing your lunch Mr. Broadcaster?   Marcos Gonzalez-Flower, the Global Head of Media Consulting at Siemens IT Solutions and Services told delegates that a generational change is happening in the world of broadcasting as new types of distribution claim a share of the mainstream existing audience. Old business models like traditional radio and tv broadcasting are being challenged by online and mobile players in both distribution and content.

He made the point that a generational change is needed within broadcasting organisations to properly fight these competitors. He also said the new world of broadcasting needs new advertising models, and a generational change is needed in the way the advertising industry buys media just as much as it is needed for broadcasting organisations. Transactional advertising, customer databasing and targeted ad delivery are all new ways of thinking needed in the new geration advertising industry.

Charting the successful introduction of digital radio in Australia, AMT’s Steve Ahern, founding editor of this website, discussed the marketing behind the introduction of digital radio, and the technical and political ups and downs that led to the introduction of the new broadcast technology in Australia. The conference paper was a preview of a new chapter that will be included in the third edition of his text book, Making Radio, when it is released by Allen and Unwin next year.

Ahern said an understanding of technology is important, but is only the first step. Then comes training to help broadcasters focus on building successful personalities and compelling content.

Various technology sessions at the conference dealt with the increasing array of products available to improve workflow ad broadcasters strive to produce and present content to an increasing range of platforms.

A seven stage model was introduced to help manage the workflow process from production to publication:

Plan > Acquire > Produce > Manage > Publish > Deliver > Playback

“People must no longer work in silos, we must work faster and across all modes from production to presentation” said Video Evengelist Guru Vaidya of Adobe Systems India.  While his presentation was very good, the most impressive thing about him was his title, how cool is ‘video evangelist’ as a job title!

At the exhibition, items of interest to radio people included:

A new model of on air desk from Studer, called the On Air 2500 digital broadcast console, which features a touch sensitive colour screen at the top of the panel. It is distributed by AVF Distributors in New Delhi. Engineer Sumit from Network 18, which uses the desks, told radioinfo, “It’s a very efficient, easy to operate and handle desk. The only problem is that the touch screen sometimes hangs (freezes) because its digital.”

An IP based broadcast desk, or ‘ethernet control surface’ if you prefer to use the new jargon, called Platform from Radio Systems. It is produced in the US and distributed by local company Technomedia from New Delhi. The desk is in use by some studios of the national broadcaster All India Radio and at new stations such as Red FM and Sun Network. The control surface uses the internet to control audio servers “in the cloud,” for more efficient storage with the desk itself only tranfmitting small amounts of ‘control data’ to activate playout.

The company claims that synchronised back up of individual desks and new ‘copper LAN’ technology make the desk reliable, but they conceded that internet outages could still cause problems for live to air broadcasting by isolating the desk from the ‘cloud.’ The technology is definitely part of the future of broadcasting, but the internet backbones available in some places may make it too vulnerable at this time for live to air broadcasters. One of the highlights of the desk is the ability to colour code the buttons to each broadcasters preference.

Playout and scheduling systems on display included Wide Orbit, Presenter, and the latest products from RCS.

Wide Orbit was created by Google as a traffic solution for television, but was later sold off to the Wide Orbit company, which has developed it into integrated radio traffic and music scheduling software and added a radio playout system. The US company has local representation in India at an office in Mumbai.

The most significant thing about Wide Orbit is how it integrates the ad booking traffic system with the whole accounts department, so that the system can make the booking, track the playout, produce a report and send the bill to the client. India and the Middle East are two key markets for the powerful integrated software product.

Presenter is a good looking playout system with big screen buttons and a colourful display. 40 clients in India are using the playout software, which includes a internal scheduler, or can work with other scheduling systems such as Music Master and PowerGold. It has recently added a voicetracking function. The product has just been bought by 1000 retail stores to use as an instore playout system. The company allows interested potential purchasers to download a working version of the software from its website to play with for ten minutes (then it locks up) too see if it is useful to them. It is available on a once off buyout basis or an ongoing licence fee if support is required.

Playout and scheduling king RCS, a radioinfo advertiser in Australia, is dominant in the Indian market, and has just introduced its new products to high acclaim from local broadcasters. The new studio automation product Zetta, which combines the best of Master Control and NexGen is being introduced to the market. It is also being introduced in Australia and radioinfo will have more on this product in coming weeks. The new traffic scheduling system Aquira is also in the Indian market, along with well known RCS products G Selector and others.