At the recent CBAA conference in Cairns, President of Technorama John Maizels led the workshop Attention Managers: Ten Tech Tips to Help you avoid DISASTER.
Noting that technologists are driven to manage risk, Maizels started by asking two critical questions: “Do you have a documented risk matrix for your station? Does the matrix include events that you think can’t possibly happen.” Since the answer to those questions is almost always “no”, Maizels then asked: “OK: what should a good manager do?”.A major challenge for any business – and radio is no different – is to identify what is the chance of something going wrong, and what the likely impact could be. From these two factors, managers can assess the risk to the operation, and then prioritise a plan to manage outcomes. “A situation only becomes a DISASTER when life is suddenly too much to handle, when events dramatically outstrip your ability to cope, and when nobody knows what to do. And it’s definitely a DISASTER when your audience notices.” “The problem facing all broadcasters is in identifying and prioritising risk appropriately. Most operators consider options, and then provide what they think is going to be an appropriate backup solution for a failure point. That might be a standby transmitter, multiple internet connections, a second (or third, or fourth) studio, RAID3 NAS, or a backup computer system that has never been connected to the internet and can’t be subject to a cyber-attack.”Those are all good things to do. Some stations can afford that, but many smaller stations can’t fund duplication of their full kit. If you can identify a risk, it’s perfectly acceptable to create a Plan B to recover when the main operation fails.
That’s called “risk acceptance”. Your plan B might be “if the studio fails, we use the OB Kit until we can do repairs, and we will run a filler-CD while we set up the OB kit”.
Of course you can have insurance, but that’s business recovery, not business continuity and insurance doesn’t keep you on the air. So regardless, you must consider further: what do you do if the unthinkable happens? That’s your Plan C“.Maizels cited the case of the New York 9/11 incident, and the impact to broadcasters. “The transmission facility on World Trade Centre 1 (the north tower) carried all the radio and TV stations for New York City. Everything in the facility was backed up to the hilt, and the broadcast techs were really good at keeping each other covered. It was family.
“There were standby transmitters, standby antennas, duplicated and diverse-path program links, standby program sources, backup power generators, and both attended and remote control operation on a 24×7 basis. The Plan B was incredibly well thought out, implemented, and regularly tested.
“What could possibly go wrong?““We now know the answer to that. None of the broadcasters on WTC, or the building owner, had a Plan C for the unthinkable: that without any warning, both World Trade Center towers would suddenly not be there, and neither would any of the carefully orchestrated backup technology.
“There was no site-diversity because it had not been considered as a plausible requirement. When the unthinkable happened, everyone was put off the air at once, including AM radio stations in New Jersey whose landline feeds went through a Verizon telephone exchange that was knocked out through collateral damage.”The industry reacted amazingly and cohesively with hardware and expertise coming from all over the country. Ultimately the winning card came via a historical accident: someone had forgotten to cancel the old TV antenna leases on the Empire State Building.”After laying the groundwork for risk assessment, Maizels went on to provide ten DISASTER-avoidance tips out of a much larger bucket:
* When coffee invades your mixer, water is your friend * Have a good address book: know who to call * Totally document your station * Take backups of everything and respect the 3-2-1 rule * Have the Plan C for your station, and tease out the worst nightmare * Manage your transmitter and especially the antenna * Develop and maintain an active Technology StratPlan * Create strong grant and funding applications * Have a Cyber-threat plan * Build and recognise your technology team
Maizels concluded by offering some hope: the importance and value of post-event analysis. “Everyone is going to have a DISASTER sooner or later. After the dust settles, identify who was impacted, who noticed, could you have done better, and could the same thing happen again?The good news is that radio is still radio, and we recover well “when we’ve taken good steps, done the leg-work, and we’re prepared,” said Maizels.Further reading: Technorama