ALAMEDA, USA – August 8, 2024 – KMOV-TV, a CBS affiliate in St. Louis successfully leveraged Clear-Com® 's Gen-IC® Virtual Intercom, a cloud-based intercom solution, to enhance communication during the live broadcast of America's Biggest Birthday Parade on July 4th. This deployment marked a significant technical achievement for the station, overcoming the challenges of a complex production setup and stringent IT security policies.
Faced with the need to manage real-time communication across a geographically distributed production team, KMOV-TV turned to Gen-IC to bypass traditional IT constraints, such as external port forwarding rules on their firewall. The cloud-based solution allowed the station to connect LQ® Series IP Interfaces at their production truck on-site and at their studio 30 miles away, using Clear-Com’s Virtual Intercom matrix hosted on Google’s secure infrastructure.
This setup enabled seamless communication without the need for VPN connections, ensuring robust and reliable operation even under the pressure of live broadcast conditions. Gen-IC’s integration allowed the station’s production team to use Agent-IC® mobile app to access intercom channels via smartphones or tablets. The flexibility of Gen-IC also facilitated real-time adjustments, such as adding or removing users and channels, with the ability to monitor and control the intercom system remotely.
“Gen-IC proved invaluable for this large-scale remote production,” said David Collins, Broadcast Engineer for KMOV-TV. “By connecting our LQ devices to Clear-Com's virtual intercom in the cloud, we were able to set up our communications network days in advance, freeing up time to focus on other aspects of the production. The ability to maintain seamless, latency-free communication between our studio staff and on-site team was critical to our success, and we were thoroughly impressed with Gen-IC’s performance and reliability. We look forward to incorporating it into future broadcasts.”
Bob Boster, President of Clear-Com, expressed his satisfaction with the deployment, stating, “We are thrilled that KMOV-TV chose Gen-IC for their live broadcast of America’s Biggest Birthday Parade. Gen-IC is designed to simplify and enhance communication for remote productions, particularly in scenarios where traditional IT setups like firewall port forwarding aren’t feasible. It offers broadcasters a cost-effective, scalable, and secure way to connect their teams, using a wide range of devices including iOS, Android, PC, or Mac. We are proud to support KMOV-TV and other broadcasters with our cutting-edge intercom solutions.”
Clear-Com continues to lead in developing innovative communication technologies that empower broadcasters to tackle complex productions with ease, ensuring flawless execution in even the most demanding environments.