GES News

Press Releases

GES and Broadnet combine forces

GES Ltd and Broadnet Ltd, the two largest suppliers of radio station solution software in the UK, have merged.

The two companies are well established, trusted suppliers of sales and traffic solutions to the UK radio industry and between them supply planning, campaign management, traffic and research analysis software to a wide variety of radio stations and sales groups across the country.

Both companies have developed their products and services through close co-operation with their clients, Broadnet providing largely local station solutions and GES providing largely national sales and station group solutions. With their different perspectives on the radio market, this merger provides a unique opportunity for both companies to combine their experience to provide a new all encompassing, consistent product (and service) that delivers appropriate levels of functionality to all.

Max Davies, GES’s Managing Director says: “GES has a successful track record within the National radio sales market as a supplier to the large groups, and brings this perspective to the partnership. This truly is an opportunity to make the whole worth more than the sum of its parts.”.

Roland Eckert, Managing Director of Broadnet says: “This is an exciting time for Broadnet and its customers, allowing us to widen our portfolio of systems and to work together with another company who, like us, have the Radio Industry at heart. I believe we can now begin to deliver some radical solutions to all types of radio stations.”

Although this merger represents an excellent opportunity to deliver even better products and services for their clients, GES and Broadnet will initially continue to operate independently but with shared development and technical resources.

Contacts:

Max Davies, GES, 01494-732530

GES Develops 'Station in a Box' for independent Radio Stations

A couple years ago, when I came into the Radio industry I came with no pre-conceptions, no real expectations that I was entering a particularly high-tech industry but I guess I did at least expect that an industry whose whole raison-d’etre is based upon electronics, would have harnessed computer systems to automate most of their basic business processes. However, what I very quickly discovered was, in IT terms, a cottage industry still alive and flourishing!

Yes, you all have computers, and yes you all send and receive copious quantities of emails. But are the systems you have helping to join-up the business across departments; to automate the most mundane repetitive tasks; to remove human procedures where they are not needed; to add value to the business decisions made every day?

Previously I had worked in IT across a wide range of industries and at the very least was used to joined-up systems, whereas in commercial radio what I found was individual departmental systems with no significant integration. Communication between departments happens as paper trails, email trails, telephone trails, and the amount of manual keying, re-keying and re-re-keying of the same information into disparate systems is quite stunning (does everyone here suffer from RSI?).

But how much of this can be automated, what real savings can the business make, where do the advantages (and the pitfalls) lie?

Well, authorisation through electronic workflow systems is hardly leading edge. The Sales Exec enters the order into the planning system then the theory says that this triggers a message to the appropriate levels of management and credit checking based on the value of the order and who the client/agency is. And if your sales manager is on holiday it automatically re-routes to his appointed stand-in. So, no more need to print out the proposal and walk it across to your managers desk, no more need to phone Lucy in accounts only to find she is out to lunch. Hey presto, one mundane task automated, more time available for the Sales Exec to do some pro-active selling!

And why then should each order need re-keying by traffic? In this industry there is a standard, the RICT file standard, for the electronic definition and distribution of campaigns, so the most obvious, simple solution is for the sales planning system to produce a RICT file for every booked order (or amendment, or cancellation) and for the traffic system to automatically load these in and process them. At a stroke you can avoid any re-keying errors, and ensure that every amendment to that ever-changing problem campaign is picked up and dealt with: no misunderstandings!

None of this is rocket science, technically it’s not that difficult, but the result could be an automated business process from sales planning to playout; sound good?

So, one might think that in such a busy environment as Radio, surely everyone would have all this in place, saving all that manual re-keying, saving the paper, the emails and the telephone calls.

But when each of your systems comes from a different supplier its not that easy, its like one is talking German and the other is talking Spanish (and I’m afraid I personally can only speak English). In a busy station, do you have someone with the time and experience to investigate whether your systems can talk a common language? Even if they do, then who’s going to set it all up, and maybe most importantly who is going to sort things out if it ever stops working?

So looking at this industry with a fresh pair of eyes was what I was brought in by GES to do. And at the time I joined, GES exactly fitted in to this little cottage industry model, it sat in its own little niche, providing a planning system called ‘PlanIt’: one single piece of the jigsaw. A very good piece I hasten to add, worked really well for the sales department and produced a generous trail of paper orders for the traffic department to re-key!

Over the last couple of years, I have worked with colleagues and Radio stations, to create a solution that matches the radio business process, a single solution from proposal to playout (and back round to the client as well for good measure).

It’s all the pieces of the jigsaw already assembled. You get a planning system with workflow for management approval and credit checking. You get orders auto-loaded straight into its integrated traffic system, no human intervention needed. You get updated availability feedback to Sales so that they know exactly what they have left to sell – bye bye oversold dayparts! You get a ‘Station in a Box’. It’s a little bit of ‘Radio Intelligence’.

as featured in The Radio Magazine (Oct 23 2004)

EMAP Switches to GES Traffic System

Emap Performance has gone live with the new GES Traffic System - the leading edge, integrated booking and scheduling system for radio airtime.
Emap’s 25 analogue and digital services, including flagship stations Kiss 100, Magic 105.4 and Key 103, are now using the new traffic system, which will simplify and improve the booking of national and local radio airtime campaigns.

Steve Palin, Head of Planning at Emap Advertising said:
“The new system gives EMAP a competitive edge over other sales points - it provides customers with an immediate view of Emap’s airtime availability. It also cuts cost and administrative time and helps us provide an improved service to our customers. The future proof technology also allows us to consider new ways of trading in an increasingly complicated digital world.”

Erica Taylor, Group Head of Radio Buying of Starcom Motive says:
” The modernisation of buying radio airtime seems to be gathering pace which, when we require a quick and efficient turnaround, can be crucial.

“Emap's new radio system not only brings a much needed immediacy to the availability checking process, I understand it also makes the monitoring and achievement of impact delivery a far easier process for the radio stations, something close to my heart! “

The Principal Architect of the system, said: “The new system speeds up the radio selling process and manages inventory more effectively. It allows stations to intelligently and pro-actively manage their inventory, and ensure they are delivering against customer guarantees.”

With its new Traffic System and existing product portfolio – GES is unique in delivering a complete business solution for the UK Radio Industry.

Emap Performance is a division of Emap plc, one of the UK’s leading media companies. Emap plc leads the marketplace with a strong portfolio of over 400 products including FHM, Kiss, Heat, Nursing Times, Health Service Journal, Spring Fair, MaxPower, Kerrang! and Smash Hits!. It owns and develops leading edge brands in radio, TV, consumer magazines and B2B (magazines, conferences and exhibitions) in the UK, France and around the world.

Emap Performance has a unique position in the UK music market through its 18 UK local analogue radio stations, six music magazines, seven digital music TV channels and the biggest digital radio network in the UK.