A LOOK BACK AT MOVING
FORWARD
HOW WE KEPT CANADIANS INFORMED & MANAGED THE 2020 LOCKDOWN
BY FRANCOIS TURENNE , ROBERTO CAPRETTA , RON SEARLES , TJ HEIDEMAN , DINU CEBZAN , ANDREW ROBERTS & CHRIS JACKSON
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR DAN CASSIE IN THE REMI TRUCK ONSITE AT THE CANADIAN LITTLE LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP IN ANCASTER , ON the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic
Since lockdown , the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has kept Canadians informed while adapting to new and innovative technological workflows .
CBC ’ s Broadcasting Centre in downtown Toronto is a hub for the public broadcaster ’ s English Service news coverage . It is home to our 24-hour News Network channel and the centralized control rooms that support key English local television news broadcasts across the country . In normal times , we have a sizable open-concept newsroom where dozens of writers , producers , journalists , and support staff assemble the stories of the day , while we broadcast live using two open-concept studio floors , serving our news channel and the main network .
Starting in early March , our flagship program , The National , asked the operation to rethink the way we produce daily news , and to focus on enabling as many newsroom staff as possible to work safely from home . When COVID-19 hit , we had to fast-track a communication system that would allow an undetermined amount of people to accomplish tasks from home which they normally would do from their desks , or from any of the eight TV news control rooms broadcasting from regions across Canada .
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION Our news operations rely on six Toronto-based RTS ADAM intercom matrixes , totaling 2,344 ports , which are linked through RTS ’ s Trunk Master Infrastructure with RVON ( RTS Voice Over Network ) to additional RTS matrixes at CBC facilities across Canada .
Our staff are well versed in communicating over RTS ’ s KP key-panels in the control rooms or at their desks . From there , they can interact with on-air talent and anyone else who is part of our giant RTS network . When the work-at-home model became an ongoing necessity , we needed to find a quick solution utilizing our existing intercom infrastructure . Over the last few years , we ’ ve had success integrating Unity Intercom – an appbased intercom system that uses regular internet for transport – to our larger RTS intercom , allowing individuals in remote locations to communicate with the production crew . Unity is an attractive option because it can run on smartphones and laptops that are already in use by staff . The installation and set-up is easily done in the field with only a few instructions . Best of all , it sounds great !
Our typical set-ups with Unity had been relatively small-scale , with a maximum of six intercom channels and rarely more than a dozen users . The question was : could Unity be scaled up to handle a radical shift by moving hundreds of news staff to their home offices ? CBC Studios and our partners in Engineering were able to upgrade a license for Unity to provide us with unlimited user accounts and an accessible work-from-home solution .
Currently , our Unity system includes a 64-channel Dante interface device , which is able to integrate through a secure network with any of our RTS Omneo / Dante cards . We can build up to 64 discrete communication paths with our existing intercom , plus users can privately call anyone logged in on the Unity server . An early challenge was to create a way for Unity users to effectively talk to hosts on IFB . Normally this is a key pressed on an intercom panel that temporarily interrupts the host ’ s program sound foldback so that they may hear instructions from the control room . The solution was to dedicate specific channel paths for IFBs and , within the RTS system , program a logic statement that tells the intercom : “ When you hear sound on channel X , turn on IFB Y .” Our housebound producers can now have two-way conversations with on-air hosts in real time .
With over six months of use and over 150 active users , we have crafted a flexible and cost-effective solution for this very sudden shift in operations . We are expanding our use of this type of remote intercom system on an
26 PROFESSIONAL SOUND