New Level Radio Standardizes on Barix Audio over IP Devices to Deliver Branded “Retail Radio” Stations to Stores in Two States

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND, April 13, 2009 — Barix AG, a pioneer in IP-based audio, intercom, control, and monitoring, announces that New Level Radio has standardized on Barix Exstreamer IP audio decoders to deliver custom, branded “retail radio” stations to retailers, restaurants and other consumer-oriented businesses across Hawaii and Colorado.  The complete solution provides a point-to-multipoint radio broadcast service over public IP connectivity, minimizing implementation costs and system complexity for both New Level Radio and its clients.

New Level Radio currently broadcasts to more than 50 stores in Hawaii and Colorado, including a variety of retail and restaurant chains such as Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, Pictures Plus, Pricebusters, Hilo Hattie’s, and the Royal Hawaiian Center, an upscale outdoor shopping mall in the heart of Waikiki.  The service provides live audio direct to the stores, providing a mix of music, advertising and promotional material to customers at the point of purchase. 

All programming is custom-designed for each business using a simple production workflow that includes a mixer, microphone, recording equipment and software to build playlists and encode audio to MP3 for delivery to stores over a reliable IP network.  Barix Exstreamer 100 devices receive and decode the audio at each store location, and interface with store PA systems to broadcast high-quality audio over loudspeakers.

“The Barix Exstreamer 100 devices are feature-rich yet affordable for us, which allows us to keep the installation costs low for our clients,” said Nathan Green, Vice President and Director of Sales for New Level Radio.  “There is no requirement to install satellite dishes on the roof at participating stores, and no burden on our customers to change CDs or switch through a satellite package to update the program.  Once the Barix device is programmed with an IP address and installed at the store, we can remotely update the firmware and maintain it over distance.”

Samuel Ambrose, president and CEO of New Level Radio, added that Barix is an essential part of the end-to-end digital production and delivery that allows New Level Radio to custom-design and deliver programming in such as cost- and time-efficient manner, while retaining high quality.   Ambrose’s experience in professional radio, which includes today’s #1 show in Hawaii for the 18-34 demographic, has been essential to the production side of New Level Radio’s business.

“I’ve been in radio for 15 years and remember the days of reel-to-reel, carts and running everything live with old turn-top boards,” said Ambrose.  “With today’s software and technology, you can do amazing things without spending a million dollars.  We select a music format and create a playlist that fits the theme of the business, digitally produce the programs, encode the audio at 160kpbs and the Barix Exstreamer devices flawlessly play out the audio streams at each site.”

Kent Untermann, President of Pictures Plus, an art and framing store with eight store locations, believes that the concept of branded retail radio delivers a unique experience for both its customers and employees.

“It is our belief that the best advertising opportunity we have is with the people in our store,” said Untermann.  “As business owners, we spend a lot of time concentrating on getting people into our stores and forgetting about the opportunities that exist with customers already there.  The New Level Radio program delivers excellent audio quality to our customers inside the store and also delivers our business message to employees very effectively.  This is all part of the experience.”

New Level Radio provides new programs monthly or on a seasonal basis, and the Barix Exstreamer solution provide instant playback in the stores.  Programs vary in length based on the hours of operation of each store and the retail business model.  New Level Radio is also able to access every Exstreamer in its network to adjust levels and settings via its central web server, and monitor the status of each device.

Tens of thousands of Exstreamer IP audio decoders are now active within in-store audio platforms in the U.S. and Europe to deliver music, advertising and promotional messages from one-to-many locations — often as a reliable and cost-effective alternative to satellite delivery platforms.  Failover options provide redundancy for in-store playback directly from encrypted content local to the Exstreamer in the event the live streaming content is temporarily offline.  In addition to MP3 and WMA playback, Barix recently announced support of and aacPlus v1 and v2 codecs in its 2009 models.  aacPlus compression provides improved audio quality and/or a reduction in bandwidth and associated costs.