Alfa TV Relies On nxtedition Automation

Finland's Alfa TV is going live with a second studio built around nxtedition's production automation solution.

Based in Kerava, the commercial broadcaster serves the whole of Finland and will use its new studio to expand its offering with a news service as well as ensuring its facility is both futureproof and scalable. This latest studio deployment by Alfa TV joins a 2019 studio installation used by the broadcaster, also powered by nxtedition, and allows the broadcaster to engage with its audience across multiple platforms.

Majority owned by Christian media ministry IRR-TV, Alfa TV has been delivering a broad range of content, from music and entertainment to sports and political discussions, including live debates in the evening, via broadcast, cable and online starting with broadcast in 2013. When planning its second studio the broadcaster chose nxtedition for its proven reliability, customisation and cost-efficiency having first-hand experience of the system from its existing studio.

nxtedition's production automation and asset management platform is built from a suite of microservices, running as virtual machines on COTS hardware. This allows the system to be highly configured to the specific needs of individual broadcasters, easy to maintain and use, and extremely cost-effective. Alfa TV is expanding onto social media as a key means of engagement with its audience and one of the strengths of the nxtedition platform is the speed with which video clips can be delivered to social media. The production team can simply define in and out points and publish with one click. This ensures social media is updated very quickly with interesting and relevant material from the broadcaster’s output.

"We know nxtedition well and have full confidence in what the system can do for us; it is light enough to meet our current needs but powerful enough to grow with us," said Alexander Store, from the technical team. "It has a good price/performance ratio and most importantly, it is user friendly making it easier for more people to make great content and ensures we can engage with our audience on linear, online and on social platforms."

In an organisation with limited resources and staff but with a commitment to high quality programming, ease of use is a key requirement for the Finnish broadcaster. The configuration and workflows were developed by a team drawn from every part of the broadcaster’s organisation.

"It is great to see Alfa TV come back to us for a second gallery," said Roger Persson, head of sales and marketing at nxtedition. "The first studio is incredibly productive, and we were pleased to be able to help them develop their news strategy through the difficult times of the last year. Because nxtedition is virtualised it is perfect for remote working, and thanks to Alfa’s experience with the system we got the second studio up and running without the need to visit the site in person."

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