2CC’s New Computer and News Intro

2CC have a new computer! They’ve had it for a bit over a week now, and I must say that it is sounding good. It doesn’t die like the old one used to do in the middle of the night, it is capable of crossfading (long overdue) and can understand a station ID pulse coming in while it is playing something else (usually a music return) and act upon it.

This is something us night owls are very happy about as it means we don’t have the same ad break 5000 times in a row from the emergency tape any more.

The computer did have a few teething issues, and it was entertaining to listen to the local presenters telling it off, and the overnight programs were fun where it would skip the first ad in an ad break by starting two ads at the same time fading the first ad out under the second ad, funny, but cringe inducing.

In related news, 2CC have moved the spoken intro on the news theme forward a bit, this is probably related to an issue I raised a few months ago when 2UE moved into their new studios with new equipment and the overnight news intro pulse started arriving a second late. As the spoken intro was designed to finish just as the network newsreaders are scheduled to start the news (7 seconds past the hour), any delay caused a clash between the newsreader and the voiceover, by moving the voiceover forward a little bit this issue has been resolved.

Overall I would have to say the overnight broadcast quality of 2CC has improved considerably, as has the daytime quality, this change is indeed better than a holiday.

I wonder what they did with the old system and if it is for sale? The software it was running would make a good collectors item, unfortunately I can’t say any more about that for risk of breaching a confidentiality agreement.

Samuel