Adventist World Radio is the international broadcast ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. One of its main objectives is to explain Christian ethics of mutual understanding and charity to more than four billion people living in the 72 countries between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude, a region spanning North Africa, the Middle East, and a large portion of Asia/Pacific. AWR and its affiliates broadcast over 1,000 hours of audio content each week in more than 80 languages, relayed from 10 transmission sites in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

AWR's headquarters in Maryland, USA, are augmented by production studios located in or near the regions they address. programmes are delivered with a potential outreach of 80 per cent of the world's population through shortwave and local AM/FM radio; listeners worldwide can access all programmes online. Content is unique to each country or region. In addition to religious subjects, topics covered include medical advice, discussions on family matters, and musical presentations.

After careful comparison of available media asset management systems, AWR has selected Pharos to provide a global content production and distribution solution using the Mediator content management and workflow platform. Pharos Mediator gives AWR the resources it needs to handle its current AM, FM, shortwave and satellite radio operation and to offer its programmes as internet-based audio-on-demand podcasts.

AWR had been experimenting with internet-based podcasting for several years as an extension of its radio activity. programmes were initially created as WAV files and compressed to MP3 before being transferred via File Transfer Protocol to the programme director who then manually opened and edited each file in Adobe Audition. Some studios have no internet connectivity and in their case an entire month's content is despatched to the playout hub on CD. With over 100 one-hour files arriving each day, this process involved a great deal of manual intervention. Content processing proved so labour-intensive that only about 10 of the 75 languages transmitted by radio could be handled.

A complete Mediator system was assembled and pre-configured by Pharos in Reading before being transported to AWR's UK headquarters. Installation, essentially plug-and-play, was performed by AWR technical and operational staff.

Mediator's browser-based user interface gives AWR staff all the facilities they need to oversee content production and publishing from anywhere in the world, including managing file transfers based on predetermined broadcast schedules. These programmes are listed in popular podcasting services such as Apple iTunes to maximise awareness of AWR content rather than being limited to visitors to the AWR web site. Podcasts can also be syndicated via Mediator through third-party web sites, blogs, and social networking sites.

The system delivers six key benefits:

* Global programme syndication and content validation enable AWR to offer its programmes as internet-delivered podcasts.

* Pharos Mediator greatly increases audience-accessibility to AWR content, making each programme available worldwide as soon as completed rather than having to be held in a transmission queue.

* Mediator integrates AWR's entire global content production and distribution network using the Amazon cloud infrastructure. programme content can be uploaded from regional studios and producers, some of whom operate in locations with restricted social and transport infrastructure.

* Pharos Mediator is capable of processing hundreds of programmes each day, transcoding as required using Rhozet's Carbon Coder.

* The Pharos installation is expandable to handle future audio and video distribution platforms as they are developed.

* The Amazon charge system is based on actual traffic supported by precise statistics which are appreciated by the philanthropists who fund AWR. This is much more precise that with radio where the only statistics available are the number of letters sent by readers in response to a specific programme.

Once an AWR audio file is ingested into the system, Mediator automatically verifies and renames it before and assigning it to the relevant broadcaster. This saves a lot of repetitive manual activity and eliminates the possibility of human error. Mediator's internal scheduler dictates which file is to play and at what time. All file movements are electronically logged to ensure that files are ready when and where required.

Mediator gives AWR the resources it needs to repurpose content for multiple platforms. programmes created for broadcast via radio and satellite can be seamlessly converted into podcasts for general internet-based distribution as well as for specific platforms such as the Apple iPhone, laptops or the Megavoice Ambassador low-cost solar-powered audio player. Mediator can also process text, photo and video files.

Mediator's integral playout automation allows AWR to automate the aggregation and publication of shortwave radio and podcast content to 13 distribution sites worldwide. Seven of these sites forward content to a variety of third-party automation systems, while the remaining six distribute transcoded audio and metadata to staging media for web-based podcasting.

The Pharos Mediator system installed at AWR runs on a blade server powered by an Oracle database. AWR's Mediator generates content and pushes it out to the Amazon cloud platform. The Amazon cloud distributes AWR's content worldwide and forms a secure bridge between the listener-access content-request interface and Mediator. Once the content is generated, an AWR web interface operates as a front end to the cloud.

Listeners request audio files simply by pressing a play icon on the relevant AWR web page. The requested file is then pulled from the nearest server on the Amazon cloud, ensuring efficient distribution. Audiences access only the local layer, each specific listener's file audio file request being played directly to the user.

Mediator's remote approvals workflow uses desktop browse to trigger a cumulative XML export of new and approved content. This is picked up by Google's FeedBurner and transformed into iTunes and other metadata-rich podcast formats.

"Mediator provides a single platform handling incoming content, quality control, scheduling, asset management, statistics and reporting," comments AWR global resource engineer Andrew Gungadoo. "It frees our operators to focus their efforts on content and reduces the risk of implementing new distribution technologies as these become available."

"Preparing content using Mediator allows our audience to search our programmes using keywords in their own language," adds AWR web manager Marvin King. "Someone interested in Russian programmes addressing topics such as alcohol-addition, family life, or salvation will be able to search for these. Mediator also provides us with productivity features such as automated quality control which makes it easier for managers to check file integrity before programmes go online."

The Adventist church has a long history of media-based communication, having grown out of the Millerite movement of the 1840s which made intensive use of print media. Pharos Mediator gives AWR a highly efficient basis for the co-ordination of its radio broadcast activity, and to expand its reach via the internet. File-based content received online or via CD from 80 regional studios is ingested to Mediator, checked if necessary for editorial or technical quality, and then transferred to transmission servers with the option of additional spot check prior to being made available on-air or online. Online listeners gain the freedom to hear AWR productions without waiting for a scheduled radio transmission and can also access post-transmission archived content. Mediator provides a single fully co-ordinated content management structure controlling workflow from ingest right through to on-air and online playout.