[BC] Oh No another automation comparison question

[Stan Holden]

Hi all,

I have a request from some longtime friends and clients asking about a comparison of automation systems.

They operate BSI's Simian at one of their stations now, but are looking to replace their old AXS system and are needing some recommendations on whether they would want to expand it into multiple stations or they are thinking of going the NexGen route.

I'm afraid I am totally out of touch as to the capabilities of todays systems and would like some opinions and recommendations on what is available.  These stations are not absolute cheapskates, but they don't have an unlimited budget to throw dollars away.    If I had to describe a criteria I would ask...if you had a reasonable budget what system would you install.  And what kind of learning curve would there be for this system.  The management has been very stable at this station, but I'm sure they have had their share of staff turnover, so how hard is it to teach new operators.

Is that enough to chew on and spit out some thoughts?

Stan Holden

We are in the market to purchase an automation system so that both our stations will be uniform.  We have looked at 2 automation systems - Simian (BSI) which we have now on WDLW and NexGen (Prophet) which we haven't used in the past, but a couple of our employees have used at other stations.  The Simian system has 5 separate computers 2 On-Air computers, 2 production computers and a news computer.  The NexGen system uses a central server.  Can you give me your thoughts on these two systems, or you may even know of a system that is not expensive, but would work and is reliable.

Stan Holden
stan at broadcast.net