Cumulus Partnership with Telos, Axia leads to IBC Innovations Award nomination
Cumulus Radio’s technical collaboration with the Telos Alliance’s Telos Systems (Telos-Systems.com) and Axia Audio (AxiaAudio.com) brands has helped put Cumulus on the short list for an IBC2014 Innovation Award, the annual prize given at the IBC in Amsterdam for “clever new technology … in real-world applications.”
The project was an outgrowth of the annual preparations for “Radio Row” at the American Music Awards, presented each Winter in Los Angeles, California. In looking for a more efficient way of dealing with the assembly of 20 separate interview stations (each with its own set of multiple mics and headphones, IFB, audio mixer and other ancillary equipment,” Cumulus Senior Vice President, Engineering and IT Gary Kline, working with Telos Systems VP Kirk Harnack, hit upon the idea of using a “Virtual Mixer” app, written by Cumulus’ Broadcast Software International subsidiary, running on touch-sensitive tablet devices, to eliminate the physical mixing consoles and directly control the mixing capabilities of Axia StudioEngine mixing platforms. Final audio was distributed to local stations using Telos Zephyr iPort codecs, each capable of “pushing” up to 16 stereo MPEG or AAC streams to separate remote locations.