Brown County Broadcasting has been family owned and operated for four generations and counting. Based in Brownwood and servicing Brown County and Central Texas, KBWD AM went live in 1941. That same year, the first sporting event, a Brownwood-Sweetwater high school football game was broadcasted live. Today Brownwood high school sports can be heard on KOXE 101.3 FM, which went live in 1975. Its 100,000 watt signal covers over 120,000 people in 13 counties.
“After enduring the limitations of broadcasting sports on an analog phone line or through a cell phone for many years, last season we purchased Tieline’s ViA codec for live sports remotes,” said Mitchell Dillard, CEO of KOXE and KBWD. “What a transformation this has been. The ViA gives us the freedom to broadcast from pretty much anywhere. Previously remotes required a van with all sorts of gear, now we just take the ViA in a compact case.”
Football is big in Brownwood and Central Texas. In years gone by, legendary coaches Gordon Wood and Morris Southall were often heard over the airwaves of KBWD and KOXE. “Our own Dallas Huston has been the voice of the Brownwood Lions since 1963,” said Mitch “He’s a legend in broadcasting high school and college sports and is joined by the talented Carl Wayne using the Tieline ViA on KOXE.”
The ViA is now an integral part of KOXE’s football and basketball broadcast remotes and is a huge improvement, both in terms of flexibility and audio quality. “Having multiple cellular and wireless connection options, and technology like SmartStream PLUS dual redundant IP streaming, really sold me on the ViA,” Mitch remarked. “Backup is important and the redundant IP streaming works well.”
“If fiber or reliable Wi-Fi is available at a venue we can use it, but generally we stream using a Netgear Nighthawk router attached via Ethernet using AT&T. Verizon has less coverage in our area, so we also attach an AT&T Air Card for the backup IP stream,” he explained. “The ViA is always pre-configured to take onsite, so it’s simple for our announcers to connect and use.”
“We use the return audio path for communications, which is useful because we switch ads via the studio. In time we aim to play ads onsite using the ViA, as the codec has the ability to import a playlist and play files from an SD card.”
“The ViA is very nimble for remotes of all types and sounds great. It’s so compact. Whether it’s live sports broadcasts, or business remotes, the ViA lets us connect and go live in minutes,” said Mitch. “With the ViA we are no longer at the mercy of whatever connection is available at a remote site, we now have better control of our own broadcasting destiny.”
For more information about ViA and other Tieline codecs, visit http://www.tieline.com
Contact Tieline
- For USA, Canada & Latin America contact: sales@tieline.com
- For Australia and International: info@tieline.com
