40 TVBEurope The Workflow
Russia Today plans tomorrow
Philip Stevens went to Moscow to view the expanded HD facilities of a broadcaster that can reach 630 million people in more than 100 countries. OKNO-TV was the project SI
OVER THE past eight years Russia Today (RT) has seen a massive increase in its audience reach. Starting with just one channel in 2005, the broadcaster now operates three international news outlets, a documentary channel, has significant presence on YouTube and provides a video news agency service. In 2010, RT became the first Russian TV channel nominated for the International Emmy Award in the news category. “Our total audience reach is
around 630 million in more than 100 countries,” explains Andrey Bukashkin, chief director of the broadcaster. “We now operate our news channels in English, Arabic and Spanish languages.” In order to allow for ongoing
growth, RT has just completed a move into a new 28,000sqm facility on the eastern side of Moscow. This new venue houses six studios, ranging in size from a virtual reality facility of 141 sqms to the Arabic language studio and newsroom of around 500 sqms. The complex, comprising three buildings, can accommodate a staff of more than 2,000. “We needed to relocate for two
reasons. First, our original building didn’t provide the space we needed to fulfil our expansion programme. We want to be ready to add further channels, including in other broadcast languages, if asked to do so. And secondly, we needed to upgrade our output – especially to become fully high definition — to meet the requirements of the transmission packages we are using. By offering HD we can work with a great many more cable companies and increase our audience further,” states Bukashkin. He goes on to say that one of the biggest challenges for the move was the sheer size of the undertaking. “We had to purchase new equipment in almost every area because the original complex needed to stay on air until we made the switch.
Andrey Bukashkin:
“By offering HD we can work with a great many more cable companies and increase our audience further”
spend. This brief ran to over 200 pages.” The brief, along with around 40 specific questions about how the project would be handled and how many engineers would be provided, was sent to a number of SIs in Russia, plus one from Finland. “The ongoing support from the SI was very important to us,” emphasises Bukashkin. The SIs were then invited to
provide presentations at which not only broadcast and IT engineers, but also finance experts from RT and building construction personnel were present. “These building experts had a lot more questions than we had placed in our original technical questionnaire.” Bukashkin continues, “After all those presentations we came to an objective decision that OKNO- TV could provide the service and support that we needed.”
Experienced integrator Formed 22 years ago in Moscow, OKNO-TV is now regarded as the leading company in its field in Russia. Its Moscow business runs from two buildings in the Russian capital, while there are additional offices in St. Petersburg and Siberia. But its operations now spread beyond the borders of Russia, and to help with that expansion programme, a new office has recently been established in London. This new facility, which is rapidly expanding its capability, is tasked with taking the OKNO-TV brand to the global marketplace. Overseeing the RT project for OKNO-TV was Mikhail Kalanchekaev, the company’s deputy technical director. “Although Russia Today provided some very detailed instructions about the equipment it wanted to use in the new facility, we were able to come up with some suggestions about alternatives. For example, we discussed the choice of routers a great deal. “From our point of view,
The combined studio and newsroom of RT’s Arabic service part of the new facility in Moscow
Additionally, our staff needed to maintain transmissions, while still spending time at the new facility to ensure that the installation work was being carried out as we had determined. So, manpower was a definite challenge.”
To meet such a big undertaking, it was obvious that the systems integrator chosen for the project would need to be both well briefed and have the resources in all areas of the production, engineering and
transmission chains. “We drew up a very detailed list of specifications for the new building. Our staff put forward ideas about what equipment would be required and the kind of money that we expected to
routers in such a big environment should be chosen for monitoring capabilities, unified control system requirements, and overall maintenance efforts. In addition, we discussed different possibilities and persuaded the RT team to go with Hitachi Data systems Virtual Storage Platform because of high reliability and good local service.” In most cases, the choice of equipment has been the same across all studios. For example, Grass Valley Kayenne XL 4ME switchers are seen in all six galleries. “In conjunction with
www.tvbeurope.com July 2013
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