The Raycom Media Station Group's CBS Cleveland, Ohio affiliate, WOIO, has gone live with Bitcentral's Precis news production and playout solution for its broadcast newsroom. The move is part of an effort by Raycom to standardize all of their newsrooms around Bitcentral's Precis and Oasis solutions.
"We've enjoyed sharing content with the rest of the Raycom group through Bitcentral's Oasis for years, but have been waiting while our sister stations benefit from the improved workflow and extra functionality of Precis," said Bob Maupin, chief engineer at WOIO in a statement. "Throughout the integration of Precis, Bitcentral not only delivered the flexibility and performance our operation requires, but they also satisfied an extremely challenging installation and activation timeline."
The system is being used by WOIO's 19 Action News team to help produce 29.5 hours of local news per week.
A key factor in the group's decision to select the products was Bitcentral's non-proprietary workflow, which allows Raycom stations to integrate the news production and playout system with the existing hardware and software being used by individual stations.
"The non-proprietary nature of Precis enables Raycom stations to improve newsroom efficiencies within a fully-integrated, multi-vendor environment," noted Alex Keighley, vice president of sales at Bitcentral in a statement. "Building upon this open foundation, stations within the group can dynamically upgrade their production systems when and where needed, maintaining total control at a reasonable cost."
