All India Radio (AIR) has taken its new Netia Radio-Assist software suite live on more than 1,300 workstations to support its national broadcast facility and 48 local stations.

The installation for the national radio broadcaster (a division of Prasar Bharati group) was coordinated by Delhi-based systems integrator Progressive Infotech. ‘The work we did with Netia ensured that the Radio-Assist deployment met the requirements of geographically distributed operations, as well as the challenges of providing content that engages AIR listeners across a large and diverse audience,’ says Progressive Infotech CTO, Gulshan Kharbanda. ‘We believe this project represents a significant improvement in AIR’s production and broadcast capabilities, and we are confident that they can build on these capabilities to enrich the on-air product for their many listeners.’

A sister service to national television broadcaster Doordarshan, AIR is one of the world’s largest radio networks in terms of the number of languages it broadcast and the socio-economic and cultural diversity of its audience. The broadcaster's home service comprises 277 stations located across the country, reaching nearly 92 per cent of the country’s area and 99 per cent of the total population. At AIR headquarters in New Delhi, Radio-Assist streamlines broadcast production and provides custom services to address the language and culture of each listening area.

Radio-Assist covers each part of the production and broadcast workflow, allowing AIR stations to record, edit and prepare a playlist. In addition to browser and publishing tools for multimedia operation, the software features tools for acquisition, archiving, audio editing, commercial and music production, newsroom systems, scheduling, broadcasting and administration. Thanks to its Unicode compatibility, the Netia software makes it easier for AIR to broadcast in more than 20 languages and additional dialects.

Netia worked with Progressive Infotech throughout the project, providing training and support, as well as on-the-ground assistance at critical sites in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. ‘The size of this Radio-Assist implementation is truly remarkable, and it demonstrates the extent to which Netia software can scale in supporting highly efficient radio production and broadcasting, despite the challenges of multilingual broadcasting across a massive geographic area,’ says Netia, head of Asia-Pacific Operations, Benjamin Schvent. ‘The system running live now at AIR is an excellent model of the modern large-scale radio broadcasting operation.’

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