NAB 2010: WHIO Taps Avid for Cross-Platform Facility

NAB 2010: Complete Coverage from B&C

Las Vegas -- Content editing and storage supplier Avid will announce April 14 at the NAB Show that it has won a large deal from WHIO, the Cox Media station and CBS affiliate in Dayton, Ohio, to supply it with a range of news production gear that will support the station's newscasts and also serve Cox's radio and print properties in the market.

In December 2010, WHIO plans to move Cox's existing television and radio stations in Dayton into an expanded and redesigned building which will house roughly 800 employees, and include new TV and radio broadcast studios and a newly integrated news, content and sales operation. The properties include WHIO-TV; the Dayton Daily News along with three other daily papers and nine weekly
newspapers; and four Cox radio stations--NewsTalk WHIO 1290AM and 95.2 FM, WHKO 99.1 and WZLR, 95.3.

The new facility will feature an end-to-end production workflow based on Avid products that will also integrate existing third-party systems used by WHIO, such as Apple Final Cut Pro editing systems. It will allow Cox to easily share news content such as raw video across all three media, including radio and newspaper Websites.

The system will include Avid NewsCutter Mojo DX and Nitris DX editors; Interplay asset management and Unity ISIS shared storage; iNEWS newsroom computer systems with the iNEWS Instinct desktop editing feature; Deko 1000 HD
and DekoCast graphics; and an AirSpeed Multi Stream
ingest/playout server.

"Our ultimate goal is to provide greater information to viewers in a timely manner, and today with potentially millions of reporters in the coverage area using cell phones and home-style cameras, the ability to cover and deliver what's going on is much broader than it ever has been," said Chuck Eastman, director of engineering at WHIO, in a statement. "We implemented our first Avid solutions six years ago, and, based on our goals, Avid provided the right solutions to help us integrate our media enterprise and build this new facility that represents the future of broadcast."