Calrec Kicks Off WPBT Renovation
Public Television, WPBT, Channel 2 in Miami, Florida, has initiated a digital renovation project with the purchase of a 52 channel Sigma 100 digital console for its Studio A control room.
WPBT is the producing station for Nightly Business Report, America's #1 daily television business news program. Other WPBT productions which will utilize the console are the nationally distributed Star Gazer with Jack Horkheimer, the statewide newsmagazine New Florida and local public affairs series, Issues and Viewpoint. The console will also be used for outside client productions.
"A few years ago I purchased a 60 channel Calrec S2 console for one of our remote production trucks," says Graham Simmons, Sr. Vice President Engineering/Operations. "I was not only impressed with the console itself but with Calrec's service and support as well. I knew when it was time to purchase a console for our studio that it would be another Calrec and I felt that digital would be more flexible and be more advantageous in the long term.
"The dedicated buss system adds so much flexibility, plus I like the added capability of having mono, stereo or surround on the outputs."
WPBT is a full production facility with two large studios, uplink/downlink, fiber, crewing and HD/SD editing capabilities. On the air since 1955, it was the first public television station in Florida and the first in the State to provide a digital broadcast signal in May 2001. The digital station currently provides high definition programming during primetime and on weekends and multicasts four discrete program streams weekdays.
Nightly Business Report reaches more than 90 percent of all U.S. television households and is distributed to more than 150 countries worldwide. It is the nation's most-watched and longest-running daily business news program on broadcast or cable television drawing an average audience of 850,000 viewers every night.
"When you are feeding over 270 stations with a live business news broadcast, redundancy and reliability is something that you can't be without. It is critical to the overall success of a producing station with so much riding on the outcome. The redundancy on the Sigma 100 was a major issue," says Simmons.
