Thum + Mahr receives the contract to refurbish the broadcast studio and main routing system in Vienna’s broadcasting house, Ö3.

According to Eurovision statistics, Ö3 is the most successful pop radio station in Europe. With an average market share of 43% it the most listened-to radio station in Austria by a wide margin. And now Ö3 is getting a new outfit from Thum+Mahr. T+M has the contract to deliver new digital mixing consoles, and carry out the system integration by the summer.

For the first time at ORF Austrian Radio, two DHD 52MX Mixing console systems are to be installed in Ö3 studios A&B. The central transmission router gains a DHD 52XR routing system. The DHD components of the system are fully networked in fibre-optic, and benefit from an ingenious redundancy and failure technology.

The decisive factor in the ORF’s trend-setting decision was the enormous flexibility and architectural scalability of the DHD system solution that T+M offered; in a special custom configuration for the ORF, the modules of the operating surface were arranged in a semicircle around the Ö3 presenter.

The installation will take place in three phases. In the first stage, control room B and the Ö3 central engineering will be replaced whilst broadcasting operations continue. Then, in the middle of December 2008, the changeover to the newly installed system will take place. Finally, following extensive building works in control room A, the final switchover of Ö3 to the new, successfully completed Thum+Mahr system will take place in May 2009.