WinMedia Streamlines Multi-site Operations and Pushes The Limits of Media Convergence for Rouge Group

The customer

Rouge Group is a private media company based in Switzerland and which broadcasts news and entertainment programmes and markets its advertising space itself through a powerful advertising department. Rouge Group provides multimedia services and operates:

  • A TV channel named Rouge TV
  • 2 radio stations – Yes FM based in Geneva and Rouge FM based in Lausanne
  • 50 web radios

Rouge FM and Yes FM respectively attract 114,300 and 62,000 listeners every day.

Rouge TV is available by cable throughout Switzerland. With more than 97,000 viewers every day, Rouge TV is the first private television channel in Western Switzerland.

The challenge

To launch its TV channel in 2008, Rouge Group wants to rely on an end-to-end solution able to:

  • Cover every aspect of the production and delivery chain, including advertising management, graphics insertion, multi-platform delivery (VOD, cable operators, and more)
  • Accelerate and automate delivery, especially for VOD
  • Promote collaboration in a multi-site environment made of 3 regional centers

After the successful launch of its TV channel, Rouge Group decides once again to call upon WinMedia’s solutions and expertise to replace its aging radio automation software and thus benefit from the many advantages of media convergence.

The solution

For Rouge TV, WinMedia designed a complete system based on its flagship solution WinMedia TV. The installation in Lausanne features:

  • 1 secured Media Asset Management platform containing all files and metadata
  • 3 production workstations to manage ingest, production and scheduling
  • 1 fully redundant On-Air workstation
  • 1 logging workstation
  • 1 workstation to manage encoding and automatic delivery of VOD content

Advertising management is ensured by WinBizz, which allows Rouge Group to centralize onto a single system all its advertising operations – for its TV, radio and web activities – in a second center. Highly scalable, this enterprise-wide solution allows the broadcaster to streamline booking and billing operations by providing real-time online booking, tailor-made customer relationship management and a wide range of planning, management, billing and reporting options. After WinBizz has scheduled advertising breaks, they are automatically sent via VPN to the different regional centers for immediate insertion in the TV, radio or web radio playlists.

The installation for Rouge FM in Lausanne includes:

  • 1 server
  • 5 production workstations
  • 1 planning workstation
  • 1 fully redundant On-Air workstation
  • 5 servers, which broadcast a total of 50 web radios
  • 1 logging workstation, which ensures 24/7 recordings and automatic podcasts extraction and delivery on the broadcaster’s website

The installation in Geneva for Yes FM is relatively the same, except for music scheduling. Indeed, all music-scheduling operations are centralized in Geneva for Rouge FM and Yes FM for optimum consistency. Once music is scheduled in Geneva, it is automatically sent via VPN through WinMedia Transfer to Lausanne and automatically inserted in the playlist following the same process than for advertising insertion.

Testimonials

“WinMedia allows us to smoothly operate our TV and radio stations, as well as our web radios, all within a single system. The solution is highly flexible and it enabled us to implement an efficient organization between our 3 operational centers, without having to worry about the technical aspects. Exchanges between remote sites are seamless and it helped us meet our productivity goals head on.”