CBC Radio Technician Don Witt at the new OnAir 3000 in CBC Saint John’s Studio B.
CBC/Radio-Canada has just installed a new Studer OnAir 3000 Modulo at CBC Saint John (New Brunswick). It is reportedly the first OnAir 3000 sold in North America.
The new 18-fader Studer desk is located in Studio B, CBC Saint John’s primary on-air room, and employed to provide up to seven hours of original programming a day, including the local metro morning show “Information Morning” and a provincial afternoon show, “Main Street,” which is broadcast to all of New Brunswick.
According to Gary Arsenault, plant manager, TV and radio for CBC Fredericton and Saint John, Studer’s proven reliability was a key reason in selecting the OnAir 3000: “We have had a number of Studer 963 consoles here in New Brunswick and the Maritime region that have given us very faithful service for a dozen years, as well as OnAir 2000s in both Halifax and Charlottetown that have been equally dependable for handling our Radio One programming needs. Consequently, we knew that the OnAir 3000 would be a similarly robust choice. We see this new console as being a major initiative in allowing us to improve the quality and presentation of our programs, and we’re excited to be using it.”
For Bill Preeper, CBC Saint John senior maintenance technologist, the new desk’s ability to be quickly configured for different users was another attractive feature. “This board can provide technicians with a tremendous amount of functionality to satisfy complex broadcast situations. And, with the push of a button, it can also be set up to operate in a very simplified manner for non-technical staff, such as our journalists who will be using this desk quite regularly for doing newscasts. That broad range of operation was imperative for us.
Preeper continues, saying, “The console’s matrix also offers a lot of routing flexibility. Although the desk physically has only 18 faders, we have been able to connect 40 sources to the board, which saved us the expense and installation of an external routing switcher.”
For more information, please go to www.studer-canada.com.
