CBS Uses RadioMan for Remote Newscasting

Jutel had been providing CBS News Radio with traditional radio automation services since 2006, but when the pandemic forced everyone home in March 2020, the broadcaster had to come up with a different way of working.

Almost overnight, CBS News closed its NYC Broadcast Center, and the CBS and Jutel teams got to work on a solution from their own homes. Collaborating with the CBS News core engineering team, Jutel focused on optimizing workflows and running newscast operations through the cloud.

The new remote operating model was enabled by Jutel’s RadioMan 6. Talk and news anchoring sections were transmitted to RadioMan 6 Media Node located in AWS cloud (U.S. East, Northern Virginia), where they were connected with news clips and pre-recorded interviews. RadioMan 6 also ran the studio clock and critical timing-related activities, so that news media were accurately matched with other broadcast content.

“Final distribution of news was then streamed to the delivery point, where it could be delivered to listeners via Skyview satellite system,” explained Olli-Pekka Lukkarinen, Key Account manager of Jutel Oy.

Jutel set up and provided CBS a completely new way to run newscast operations remotely in a multi-location production environment. This included establishing a remote home studio for each news anchor, which involved optimizing internet connection, audio devices and microphones, as well as working out browser-based UI usability, seamless timing, audio quality and playout indications.

“All the hard work of all parties involved paid off and we are grateful for the opportunity to support one of our oldest clients in these turbulent times,” Lukkarinen said.