RCS: It’s all about the cloud says NAB Best in Show winner

Reporter

“Radio stations in the future won’t have any hardware. It’ll simply be online.”

That observation from RCS Asia Pacific Vice President Keith Williams, who says it’s all about the cloud.

Radio Today’s Wayne Stamm caught up with Keith at this year’s NAB Show in Las Vegas, where RCS won the award for Best in Show exhibit.

Keith told us the cloud has been front and centre of recent developments.

“We’re very focused on getting our products in the cloud. We’re working on three key products: Acquirer, Zetta, which is our playout, and G-Selector, which is our music scheduling software.”

And he says big advances have already been made in the Zetta cloud area.

“We’re using that – if you will – as a ‘set and forget.’ We’ve actually got hundreds of stations on Zetta cloud around the world. (With) set and forget, you put a log into it and let it play.”

“There aren’t the features for what we would call ‘prime time’ yet … you know, the SCAs and the Novas and ARNs, it’s not ready for live radio, if you will, but we certainly also use it for disaster recovery.”

“That is a real live, living thing and we are now focused on getting Acquirer – which is traffic scheduling – and music scheduling with G-Selector.”

Keith says all these things take time.

“You’ve got to get it right. You’ve got to get the audio right and the sound processing right.”

He acknowledges some people are a bit afraid of the cloud.

“But if you actually think about it, most things we do are in the cloud, from banking to paying bills and airline tickets.”

He says security is just one of the benefits of the cloud.

“Upgrades are easier. Support is centralised. We can deal with issues in one hit, rather than having to deal with individual radio stations.”

One thing the pandemic opened up was the potential to work from home. Keith says this has been beneficial in getting more acceptance for the cloud.

“We’ve had a very strong growth over the last couple of years with our ‘to go’ products, because of the remoteness.”

“I think radio has probably changed forever in that sense, that people will be broadcasting from home more.”

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