Audacy Selects Tieline for Live MLB Coverage
By Bill Eisenhamer, Chief Engineer, Audacy San Diego
Audacy’s San Diego cluster consists of five FMs, four music stations and one sports station, and as Chief engineer I am responsible for technical coordination of the Padres MLB radio broadcasts.
We have experience with IP codecs from various manufacturers, and each have advantages and disadvantages. Many years ago we decided to use Tieline codecs, and today we own about 24 Tieline codecs with 6 ViAs being the workhorses for our market’s 5 stations, along with 3 Merlin Plus units. We also have Tieline Gateways for inter-studio links and sports-related feeds, as well as several first-generation Bridge-IT and Bridge-IT XTRA codecs.
The Installation
Before Opening Day of the 2025 MLB season we installed a new Tieline Bridge-IT XTRA II codec in the broadcast booth rack at Petco Park used to call games on KWFN, 973 the Fan, the home of the San Diego Padres. The main signal covers San Diego along with 4 boosters, and extending coverage through affiliates in Temecula, Palm Springs, CA, and Las Vegas, NV.
This is a semi-permanent setup, and the new Bridge-IT XTRA II replaces an older codec that was due for an upgrade. We dial from Petco Park and send stereo program audio to a studio-based Gateway 8 using Tieline Music Plus encoding. This same Gateway distributes mono feeds to our affiliates, and connects to a ViA codec for road games. In some rare instances, we have used Opus to accommodate poor internet connectivity at remote sites.
Redundancy is very important to us, so we use SmartStream Plus. The Bridge-IT is programmed using both NICs independently. The Gateway at the studio has two independent ISPs as well, one NIC is internal, so NAT translation is used, while the other is setup on a DMZ. If we lose one, we will not lose our full broadcast.
On one channel of the stereo return we send mono program and IFB comms, and the second channel is a produced play-by-play feed routed to the Petco Park control room. This feeds the stadium’s common areas.
We do not rely on the stadium’s internet data as it is shared by other media. Instead, we utilize two ISPs in the booth for redundancy – AT&T and Comcast over fiber. In addition, we have a cellular hotspot with an integrated NIC using T-Mobile as a backup. For home games this is utilized with the ‘road’ ViA as standby.
Remote Control and Accessibility
We use Tieline’s Cloud Codec Controller for remote codec management, which makes it easy to jump in and make a change or troubleshoot any issue quickly. This is very comforting to producers and engineers, especially when they are not located with the talent.
Another plus is user accessibility. I like how I can access menus with the Bridge-IT XTRA II front panel, especially if there is no computer or remote access. We all like Web-GUI access, but sometimes having buttons can save the day.
Studio Setup
My philosophy is that flexibility and reliability are critical. All our codecs at the studio, except for the Gateway 16, are connected to our SAS system via AES digital audio. I have tested a Gateway using a Dante module which worked well, and may be implemented in the future. Our Gateway 16, used as an inter-market link, is integrated with our WideOrbit automation system using Livewire for audio and GPIOs. This delivers the ability to fallback to AES audio and discrete GPIO. Again, flexibility.
Summary
Ease of use, installation, and remote access top the list of advantages for the Bridge-IT XTRA II. In addition, having two network interfaces (NICs) for use with SmartStream PLUS, to ensure redundancy and up-time, is important. Going forward we may integrate AES67 networking to add more flexibility in the booth, and the Bridge-IT XTRA II has dual AoIP ports as well, so this upgrade will be simple to complete.
Want to know more about Tieline products and software?
For more information on Bridge-IT II and other Tieline codecs visit www.tieline.com/products or contact Tieline sales:
- For USA, Canada & Latin America contact: sales@tieline.com
- For Australia and International: info@tieline.com
(“Audacy Selects Tieline for Live MLB Coverage” first published in Radio World, August 12 2025)
