CityLink Customer Story: The Radio Network
CityLink streamlines the delivery of radio over the internet for The Radio Network and its listeners
The Radio Network is New Zealand's largest commercial radio networks, with well known stations across the country such as Radio Hauraki, Radio Sport, Newstalk ZB, Classic Hits and ZM. Radio Network is a pioneer of radio over the internet in New Zealand, launching their first radio websites in 2002 and being one of the first networks to provide on-demand audio available online, allowing listeners to hear preferred programmes up to a week after their initial broadcast. As more and more listeners choose to "timeshift" and download their favourite programmes to fit in with their lifestyles The Radio Network has moved from being just a broadcaster to having to manage a growing pool of digital content.
The Radio Network's Challenge
The Radio Network was looking for a way to manage their live streaming of stations, which required immediate access to bandwidth and streaming servers based on listener demand rather than a time-based broadcast schedule. As more listeners turn to the audio streams on their computers, they now "tune in" to breaking news stories or major sporting events on-line creating highly variable (and expensive) peaks in demand for both bandwidth and streaming server capacity.
The Radio Network faced a major challenge, should they invest in their own infrastructure and bandwidth, which would have to be designed around foreseeable peaks in demand or The Radio Network could look for a partner who had the systems, skills and bandwidth to cope with the growing demands of on-line media distribution and the ever expanding on-line audience.
CityLink's solution
By choosing CityLink as its streaming media solution provider The Radio Network satisfied their requirements to provide their on-line audiences with a high quality experience irrespective of demand.
Using a combination of CityLink's "Harmony ProStream" and "ExchangeNET" services and the almost unlimited bandwidth capacity of CityLink's fibre optic networks, The Radio Network is now able to provide a single audio stream to the "Harmony" content distribution network, which have been purpose built to cope with very high demand peaks because they have been developed to meet the challenges of some of NZ's biggest on-line streaming challenges including the live streams of the "Lord of the Rings" premieres and on-line high definition TV coverage of the Beijing Olympics.
The next step in getting the streams directly to The Radio Networks listeners involves "ExchangeNET" CityLink's unique network of internet peering exchanges that ensure that The Radio Network streams go as directly as possible to the listeners ISP, this can be directly at the
internet exchange or over another network.
"If we decide that we want a new radio station streamed live, CityLink can have it up and running within a day or two, which is pretty impressive," says Brian Barclay, Digital Operations Manager at The Radio Network.
Real benefits for The Radio Network
CityLink's ProStream has taken the worry out of online streaming services for The Radio Network, while enabling them to increase their listening base with ease. As Brian says "We don't have to worry about bandwidth issues anymore because it's all taken care of by CityLink. CityLink has allowed us to increase our online listener base many times over without compromising their listening experience. We can easily add more live streams and on demand material as the need arises and they're available for us around the clock which gives us great peace of mind, knowing our listeners needs are always being met."
