How to Spin Up a Broadcast Course
What happens when you have some TV playout operators land on-site but you have several weeks to spare before you need them on live operations?
Easy – you devise a bespoke course for classroom based learning of the company, the backend technology and instil some operational best practice. With the culmination being an operations manual presented to peers and a graduation ceremony thrown in for good measure!
Ancast was providing consultancy to Arqiva, who at the time was migrating the NBCU channels to their Chalfont site. And so was best placed to devise a way to leverage the time between operators arrival on-site and the channels going live.
First challenge was to provide temporary freelancers some guidance as they needed to get content running through the channels that were being built. As well as understand the nuances of temporary workflows, configurations constantly changing and workarounds.
Given the context in the guide produced, the freelancers could then ensure the scheduled content was being played - valuable for the project team to gauge the integrity of the
channel build.
The second challenge was that the temporary freelancers were only a stop gap between a permanent shift of TV playout operators taking over – yet there was this gap.
Having 6 weeks to fill but with room in a ‘lab’ to seat them all it was sensible to create a bespoke 6 week course.
The 7 page ‘Operator Guide’
- Workflow, Technical Setup and daily routine overview
- Procedures with screen snippets to aid guidance
- System descriptions, access and UI instructions
It kind of snuck up on us but the first 2 days were simply site familiarisation and introductions – it did give chance to write a training programme though.
It was a stroke of luck in a sense that these operators were given the opportunity to really learn the TX chain and embed operational excellence.
At the graduation show to our peers, everyone took turns speaking about creating their manual before we gradually integrated them on shift – very rewarding.
- – 5 weeks am/pm learning sessions
- – Document as they go – save time
- – Guest speakers to add value
- – Week 6 present their manual
Now that the operators were trained up in the new TV channel build and launch – it was time for the third challenge, to do the same with the senior staff. Having known what works and letting the participants use the actual systems in a safe way was the mantra of the day.
Workshop Agenda in the ‘lab’
– In depth backend systems
– Outage recovery advice
– New internal integrations
– Escalation procedures
– Senior PC access & config
– TX chain walkthrough
– Practical hands-on session
The audience was Senior Transmission Controllers, Shift Leaders and Engineers - it was a very low-level workshop over 3 sessions, but really closed the loop from a support sense.
It seemed like the right time to do the senior workshops, the operators were now ready and the channels were going live. After all, it is support and operations that inherit project work and glad that this training was part of that.
The consultancy assignment was around 9 months long and involved being embedded in the project team to call upon specialist skills – training was just one of them. Ancast has worked with the client Arqiva many times, who were pleased to see the channels go-live and project concluded by starting many years of fine service by them.
Testimonial
"Ben did an exceptional job on recent projects. As I remember, Ben was a very productive person and is a multi-skilled person with vast knowledge. Ben is careful, proactive, self motivated, intelligent team player and exceptional at teaching others."
written by Joe Pignataro
– then Service Delivery Manager, Arqiva
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💡 Executive Summary Conversational AI is rapidly redefining how companies engage with customers — but it’s voice, not just text, that’s setting the next frontier. AI voicebots now allow brands to hold intelligent, human-like voice conversations at scale, enabling real-time support, sales engagement, onboarding, and more. At Ancast Intelligence, we’ve been exploring how voice-driven agents can augment human teams, reduce operational overhead, and create powerful new customer experiences — without the constraints of traditional IVR systems or live agent bottlenecks. 🎙️ Real Conversations. Real Impact. Voicebots are here. In a world where digital interactions often feel cold and mechanical, AI voicebots bring warmth and presence back into customer conversations — and they’re proving to be game-changers across industries. At Ancast Intelligence, we began experimenting with voice agents in mid-2025, following a demo of a basic RAG (retrieval augmented generation) chatbot during the UC Berkeley AI course. That demo, while simple, sparked something bigger — what if we could give that chatbot a voice? Already using ElevenLabs for podcast narration, we discovered its powerful voice agent capabilities and quickly built a conversational AI assistant, powered by our own cloned voice and a finely tuned knowledge base. The result? A seamless voicebot that now interacts with visitors on our site, guiding them through: And crucially — it feels like you’re talking directly to our founder. 🎙️ Why Voicebots (Not Just Chatbots)? Chatbots are now commonplace, but voice is how humans naturally communicate. AI voicebots unlock: Voice isn’t replacing people. It’s extending teams with superpowers. 📺 Broadcast & Media: Industry-Specific Applications With our deep background in broadcast workflows, we see several powerful use cases: 💡 Use Cases That Transcend Industries Voicebots are no longer a novelty. They’re intelligent, always-on assistants that can streamline operations, enhance user experience, and extend your team’s capabilities. 🏥 Healthcare 24/7 symptom checkers, Appointment confirmations, Post-visit surveys, Wellness reminders 🏢 Real Estate & Property Virtual property tours, Real-time Q&A about listings, Rental application screening, Multilingual tenant support 🛍️ E-commerce & Retail Conversational order tracking, Returns/refund queries, FAQ bots for product info, Loyalty program assistants 🎓 Education & Training Onboarding for online courses, Personalized tutoring, Answering admissions FAQs, Voice-led surveys and feedback collection 💼 Recruitment Vacancy match conversations, Candidate Q&A with a recruiter voice, Interview prep voice coaches, Auto-scheduling follow-ups 📞 B2B & Professional Services Lead qualification, Discovery calls, Explaining complex services with tone and clarity, Embeddable widgets on every client-facing page 🔍 The Tech Behind It Modern voicebots aren’t built on decision trees. They’re powered by: We build agents that learn, improve, and adapt to real-world customer interactions over time — not just regurgitate scripted flows. 🤖 Human in the Loop: Augmented, Not Replaced We’re not advocating for replacing teams — we’re augmenting them. Voicebots can handle the repetitive, high-frequency tasks so that your teams can focus on storytelling, strategy, and relationships. In broadcast, that might mean helping schedulers focus on macro programming trends. In property, it’s about freeing agents to handle serious leads. Across the board, voicebots reduce burnout, accelerate workflows, and increase satisfaction. 🚀 What We Built at Ancast Our voice agent: 🧠 Try the Voicebot Experience Want to hear what it sounds like to talk to an AI voice agent — or better yet, yourself? 👉 Visit our site to chat with our voice agent #Voicebots #ConversationalAI #AI #VoiceTech #BroadcastAI #AIConsulting #LLM #AugmentedIntelligence #AncastIntelligence #CustomerExperience
June 21st, 2025 By Ben Anchor Capstone project submitted for the Berkeley Executive Education Program in AI Strategy (April – June 2025) 📌 Executive Summary During my time at Berkeley, I explored a business case that had been forming in my consulting work: could external, real-time signals (like search trends, news sentiment, or social media) be used to inform broadcast scheduling — not to replace human decision-making, but to augment it intelligently? Rather than presenting a technical build or proof of concept, this capstone was designed as an eight-slide business case, showing how broadcasters might benefit from AI-powered scheduling layered with human editorial oversight. 🎯 The Challenge In the first module of the program, we were prompted to define a potential capstone topic — a “straw man” use case ripe for AI application. I initially considered projects related to accessibility in live sports and real-time captioning workflows, but I eventually settled on something that aligned more closely with my decade of experience: intelligent scheduling for server-based playout systems. Scheduling teams — the people responsible for aligning programming, creative content, and commercial obligations — work in high-pressure, manual environments. The aim of this project was to explore whether AI agents, augmented with external signals, could support these teams in making faster, audience-led decisions. 🧪 The Approach The capstone proposed a model that could ingest historical broadcast schedules, recent performance data, and third-party signals — such as: The concept wasn’t about full automation. Instead, it focused on “augmented intelligence” — with a human-in-the-loop approach designed to maintain trust and editorial oversight. To give it a realistic framework, I modeled the project using metrics like Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) — commonly used to track the gap between forecasted and actual viewership. Thresholds were established to guide how much intervention might be required, depending on performance range The plan also accounted for future hand-off to ML Ops teams to handle retraining, monitor model drift, and ensure the AI system would remain calibrated to changing audience behaviors and broadcast cycles. 💬 Reflections This capstone project felt like the culmination of the last ten years of my work in broadcasting — migrating scheduling systems, working side-by-side with programming teams, and observing how operational bottlenecks emerge. It also reframed what AI can offer to the industry. Instead of replacing creative and strategic input, this system is designed to free up time, so teams can focus on bigger-picture storytelling, campaign planning, and strategic collaboration — not just lining up promos in a spreadsheet.And importantly, it lets broadcasters respond to change at the speed of culture — adapting to shifts in minutes or hours, rather than days. 🚀 What’s Next This isn’t just a concept on slides — it’s now being positioned as part of the strategic advisory services we offer through Ancast Intelligence. Whether you’re exploring AI scheduling, signal-based insights, or the future of audience workflows, feel free to connect for a full slide deck presentation. 📬 contact@ancast.co.uk 🌐 Visit the new website!
So what happens when your plumbing in a centre-piece tape to file workflow and you’re asked to add in some other content providers? Well just take what you learnt from the media solution you put in and the on-boarding process your crafted and apply it to the others! It means you know what works, fits in with broadcasters architecture and the documentation is standardised. It was one of many contractor assignments in Chiswick Park, this time Ancast providing what was described as ‘Media Solutions Engineer – On-boarding Specialist’ which was a bit of a mouthful but fitted the bill. It required media technology experience specifically in file delivery, workflow but also soft-skills in client on-boarding (at least it avoided coding – not my bag.) What needs to be plumbed in first? Well that was what you’re here for – we need to onboard these distributors and move them from tape delivery to a standardised media contribution workflow. Let’s work with the project and operations team and see which one we will target first. It’s a strategic project, it will save money and enable a fully automated workflow right up to eyeball QC with richer metadata – these are the drivers. And we also have a pressing issue of a planned series just acquired that has a short lead time for TX that we need to get through – can it be done? (of course!) Running order to get up and running: OK so 2 down how many to go? This could be a valid question as the combinations could now be endless, is the cookie cutter working – let’s find out. There are so many awkward workflows out there it would be prudent to get as many as possible to be integrated in a standardised way. Now that your in a media plumbing ‘rhythm’ let’s see what we can put on your task list – now it doesn’t really matter where it’s coming from to be honest. The workflow profile’s being put in are all automated right up to QC, they all have notifications, support routes and bespoke documentation – next. By now the operations staff become acquainted with you and there is less asking for system access and where things are – simply get more plumbing jobs. The contractor assignment was around 7 months in the end, the stormin’ normin’ performin’ aspect was just as it says. Embedded with the tech teams collaborating on shared work or going forth on my solo integrations which finishing was a well oiled machine. Ancast still follows their updates and developments (some incredibly progressive!) and keeps in contact with them – as always. testimonial “I have had the pleasure of working with Ben on a number of occasions. He is an expert in file based workflows and can be trusted with high level solution architecture through to the set up and configuration of workflow tools. Ben played a pivotal part in integrating international offices and clients to the file based workflows for VOD, editing and languaging. Ben’s is the sort of guy who will get on with the job raising issues and suggested solutions along the way.” written by Ian Baker then Director of Media Technology, Discovery
