WLIO, WOHL Streamline Branding

Ohio's Hometown Stations (WLIO and WOHL) have installed four GS-4000 master control branding systems from Utah Scientific to speed workflow and the process of posting graphics.

WLIO/WOHL, which serves about 750,000 households in Ohio and Indiana and are owned by Block Communications, are unusual in that they broadcast programming from four of the major U.S. networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.

That means WLIO/WOHL often must display the same information with four different branded looks and had been looking for a solution that would allow them to handle that complexity in a more streamlined fashion.

"Since we have four stations co-located, the ability to get something done in the least amount of time is very important to us," explained Frederick Vobbe, WLIO's director of engineering, in a statement. "Since the GS-4000 has macro capability, we just put data into one unit, and it produces four different graphics for each of our four stations. In the old days it might take 30 seconds or more for the operator on each station to put together a lottery crawl. Now we do that same function in three seconds, for all four stations."

The GS-4000 units operate through Hometown Stations' existing Utah Scientific master control switchers, so the master control operators can call up preconfigured pages from memory at the touch of a button.

They also make it possible to integrate graphics such as side panels, time and temperature inserts, lottery numbers, and crawls onto the screen so that they are branded for each network.

"We looked at a lot of systems, but the GS-4000 was a good marriage for us because of the way it interfaced with the rest of our system," added Vobbe in a statement.

He also praised Utah Scientific for their speedy installation and integration of the units.