Working from Kano, the capital city of Kano State in Nigeria’s North West zone, Dala FM is an independent radio station that ‘promotes national unity, gives voice to the voiceless and raises the standards of broadcast journalism in its areas of coverage’. Its recent adoption of Lawo’s R3lay brings state-of-the-art technology to its mission.
Often referred to as the Giant of Africa, owing to its estimated 260m population, Nigeria represents Africa’s largest economy and considered by the World Bank to be an emerging market. ‘This bold decision turns Dala FM into Nigeria’s first virtual radio station,’ says Opeyemi Ogunsaju, Lawo’s distributor in Nigeria. ‘The entire Dala FM team immediately realised the potential of Lawo’s R3lay VRX radio solution for its operations.’
After due market research, Dala FM 88.5 decided to migrate from the analogue world to a fully IP-based radio set-up. Its 16 audio channels, derived from analogue, digital and IP sources, are connected to a media-grade PC running Lawo’s R3lay Bundle. The stations’s set-up also includes seamless and flexible live-reporter contribution for newsgathering and on-location programming.
R3lay VRX provides audio management and maximum flexibility for up to 24 physical and IP-based audio sources, which makes content creation and newsroom integration straightforward. Lawo’s cloud-savvy software enables interoperability with myriad of radio applications for automation, recording, scheduling, commercials, news, broadcast streaming and visual radio.
‘Today’s radio stations benefit from a PC-based, virtual IP approach in terms of flexibility, deployment and maintenance,’ says MD Abbas M Dalhatu, the Executive Director in charge of Dala FM’s business development. ‘Lawo’s R3lay bundle is not only affordably priced, it also ticks all the right boxes in terms of intuitive operation, stability and reliability.’
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