Maori Radio Upgrade Project

Te Mangai Paho is the New Zealand Government Maori Broadcast Funding Agency. They are responsible for funding the development of Maori language programmes for radio and television in New Zealand and the operation of Maori radio stations and the national Maori television service.

In 2006 AVC Auckland successfully won a tender to provide new equipment for 21 Iwi radio stations funded by TMP. TMP spent over 2 million dollars upgrading 42 studios and the technical capacity of the Iwi radio network.

Key to TMP was the requirement for technology that would support the stations into a digital broadcasting era. AVC supplied Axia Livewire IP based digital studio systems and Element consoles. They also provided Telos 1x6 telephone hybrids and Omnia 3FM processors to all the stations.

Each station had two studios outfitted with fully redundant Axia Livewire equipment, including analogue nodes, mix engines, GPIO/Power supplies and Element consoles. AVC also provided Yellowtec Mika microphone arms and monitor stands as well as XI audio headphone amplifiers.

Reasons why TMP selected AVC and Livewire included the systems excellent performance and low cost of ownership as well as the simplified installation cost compared to traditional analogue equipment. Where normally 20 or more cables would be required, Livewire requires as little as a single twisted pair cable between a studio and MCR to carry 256 uncompressed audio channels.

Contact person: Igor Zukina