Morocco's Luxe Radio Takes to the Air and Internet With NETIA's Radio-Assist 8

Newly Launched Radio Station Builds Streamlined, Highly Automated Production and Broadcast Workflow on Radio-Assist 8 Software Suite

CLARET, France - May 31st, 2010 - NETIA today announced that Morocco's Luxe Radio, a new radio station dedicated to luxury and the art of living, was launched deploying the latest version of the Radio-Assist^TM 8 suite of digital audio automation software. The NETIA software not only supports and streamlines the end-to-end production and broadcast workflow at Luxe Radio, but also makes it easy for the station to leverage its official Internet portal, www.anaka.ma, the first Moroccan luxury magazine on line.

"Luxe Radio is the radio of taste, elegance, and refinement, with programming that responds to Moroccans' passion for art, fashion, luxury, and lifestyle," said Abdessamad Aboulghali, president of Luxe Radio. "We are proud to showcase the exceptional artistic talents and creative elements within our country and to share with listeners the finer aspects of living in the international global village. As we strive to deliver the best of Moroccan and international life, NETIA's Radio-Assist 8 software suite provides a complete, intuitive, and efficient platform that ensures the quality and continuity of our radio and Internet broadcasts."

This project was implemented in close partnership with systems integration company AVTM - EUROCOM Morocco, based in Casablanca, which ensured the integration and technical implementation of the whole project.

One of just four new stations to have received a private broadcast license from Morocco's Higher Council of Audiovisual Communication, Luxe Radio broadcasts from Casablanca to six cities: Rabat, Marrakech, Agadir, Essaouira, El Jadida, and Casablanca itself. The NETIA installation in Casablanca includes 15 workstations tailored to the jobs of journalists and technicians, with two dedicated to playout and a backup used to provide redundancy.

Together, these production workstations cover the entire production workflow, providing tools such as NETIA's RA Feder-All, which automatically designs and generates schedule templates while giving users all of the functionality required to prepare a playlist. The system also manages scheduled streaming of the audio broadcast to www.anaka.ma, where listeners can tune in via Internet radio. Luxe Radio uses the Air DDO module for automatic playout of programs overnight.

Two servers run NETIA's DBShare, which systematically maintains the synchronous redundancy of all the metadata the system produces and the consistency of database contents. The media logging module within Radio-Assist 8 records everything that is broadcast, with its Feed In/Feed Plan automatically capturing and recording all audio feeds for compliance with legal requirements.

"Equipped with a broad range of tools for end-to-end multimedia workflows, Radio-Assist 8 allows broadcasters to optimize the efficiency of their operations, from ingest through to delivery on multiple platforms," said Christophe Carniel, president and CEO at NETIA. "The installation at Luxe Radio demonstrates the Radio-Assist 8 software suite's excellence in supporting both traditional and online productions and broadcasting from one comprehensive yet easy-to-use interface."