Client: Rhema Media
Location: Auckland studios, Upper Queen Street, and transmission sites around New Zealand
Timeline: 2013 to today
Services: System design, Wheatstone supply, configuration, installation and commissioning, training, transmitters, filters, combiners and antenna systems, ongoing support and upgrades
Overview
Rhema Media runs three national radio networks from its Auckland studios: Rhema, Life FM and Sanctuary. All three go to air through a Wheatstone WheatNet-IP network that Southern Broadcast designed and supplied in 2013 and has supported ever since.
Thirteen years on, the partnership is still growing. In 2023 Rhema began renewing its original WheatNet-IP Blades with Wheatstone’s latest Blade 4 hardware.
Where it started: network first (2013)
In 2013, as Rhema moved to a new automation system, it chose to rebuild its studios on WheatNet-IP. We recommended building the whole network before touching a single studio, so that each studio changeover would be simple and quick. A lot of design and planning went into the network before any equipment was deployed.
Phase one, delivered in November 2013, put in the WheatNet-IP core: studio and line-room I/O Blades, processing Blades, Cisco core switching, and the software and drivers that connect the automation system directly to the network.
Four LX-24 studios (2014–2015)
Phase two added four studios built around Wheatstone LX-24 control surfaces. Southern Broadcast worked alongside Rhema’s engineering team, led at the time by Roly Runciman, on the installation and configuration. We brought the Wheatstone expertise, and Rhema’s own staff did much of the hands-on work.
The changeover in early 2015 was planned so listeners never noticed. Each network moved to a standby studio while its home studio was rebuilt, then moved back, one brand at a time. Star, the network now known as Sanctuary, went first in February 2015, followed by Rhema and Life FM.
A decade of support
Since then, Southern Broadcast has kept Rhema’s system current: software upgrades, monitoring, licensing and training, and help whenever it’s needed. Beyond the studios, we have supplied transmitters, filters, codecs and RF equipment for Rhema’s distribution and transmission sites around the country.
The next chapter
In 2023 Rhema began replacing its original Blades with Blade 4 hardware, and is currently planning new studios. Southern Broadcast continues to work closely with Skip Parker and his team at Rhema Media, and the network we designed in 2013 keeps growing with them.
Southern Broadcast Ltd is a broadcast engineering company providing studio, RF and transmission design, installation and support to broadcasters across New Zealand and the Pacific.
Planning a new studio or upgrading an existing one? Talk to Southern Broadcast about Wheatstone and WheatNet-IP studio systems.