As New Zealand’s largest independent broadcaster (operator of five nationwide free-to-air channels plus an extensive portfolio of radio brands), MediaWorks is working with Avid, Netia distributor Syncrotech Systems to consolidate it news assets on both radio and television platforms.

To this end, MediaWorks is using the Netia Media Assist software package throughout its radio departments to streamline workflow, optimise management of media assets across multiple sites, and improve productivity to-air and digital.

Although MediaWorks has spent two years considering the move, the broadcaster needed only days after seeing the Media Assist suite at the BroadcastAsia2015 show to decide to call on Netia for a proof-of-concept demonstration. Just three weeks later, Netia held on-site workshop sessions at the Auckland facility and demonstrated the integration of Netia Media Assist with Avid iNews.

‘Media Assist will help Newshub and other MediaWorks news operations units to streamline their workflow and take full advantage of news assets across broadcast operations,’ says Netia Pre-sales Engineer, Alexandre Martinez. ‘Using Netia software in conjunction with iNews, MediaWorks will be able to reduce its reliance on manual operations, boost content transfer between its radio and TV departments, and ultimately realise an optimal return on its assets.’

Netia’s radio automation modules cover the digital audio workflow, supporting production and playout of radio news programming. The modular structure of the software makes integration into existing operations and facilitates ingest, editing, scheduling, broadcast, multicast, archiving, data security, and administration via a single user interface straightforward. The solution at MediaWorks will allow journalists from central and regional sites in New Zealand to connect to servers within MediaWorks’ Auckland headquarters. Media ingested and edited locally by journalists at regional sites will be pushed to the Netia server in Auckland.

MOS integration of Netia and iNews will enable radio journalists to work on Netia audio assets from within the iNews client workstation. Media Assist tools, including a browser, player and Netia’s Snippet editing tool, are accessible from within the iNews workstation session as ActiveX plug-ins. Any rundowns with audio assets created in iNews can be used to create audio playlists on Media Assist, which will manage playout. 

More: www.netia.com