Locality Switch

The Community Broadcasting Foundation announced in their July 2009 Email Newsletter that they would soon be offering grants for IP based Outside Broadcast equipment. Well, it’s finally arrived. Here’s the details.

Any long term or temporary community station without any existing IP OB equipment may apply for the grant of up to $2,500. This opportunity is only open this year, so if you miss the 12th October 2009 deadline for submissions, then there is the chance you may never be able to apply for this type of grant.

Taking a look through the application form, you are asked how many OBs you did in 2009, and are asked to list the last five OBs you have performed. While it does say “if applicable” next to this bit, my guess is that stations with a previous history of OBs will be given priority.

The application form has a table with different categories of items, with a place to write in your quoted amount for each of the ones you are applying for. Categories include notebook computers, USB modems, Mixing consoles, Microphones, Audio interfaces and most curiously, Audio Streaming Software.

The Audio Streaming Software category is either badly worded, or implies that they don’t want to fund hardware solutions. It looks like AudioTX and Tieline are out of the question. I suppose this isn’t surprising, as the OB-over-IP Manual released by the CBF didn’t really cover any hardware solutions (or any open source software packages, either!).

What does this grant opportunity mean for the sector? It means that it may now be possible for many stations to move away from POTS codecs and leased lines which have been used for traditional outside broadcasts, and move towards IP equipment over 3G connections. It will allow for much more programming freedom, and will possibly allow for more OBs to occur.

Easier and cheaper OBs will hopefully allow for more community interaction and involvement, and that’s what we’re here for. Right?