Crispin Gives a ‘Shout Out’ to Customers

By Debra Kaufman

Crispin came to NAB this year aiming to make its customers happy. “The ‘Shout Out’ campaign is in recognition that everyone is going through hard times,” says CEO Dave Neal. “We priced three of the modules differently and introduced a new product in order to say, we know it’s tough out here, here are some things that can be of value for you, and at a very nice price.”

The new product is NewsCat, a simplified version of its NewsPro news-archiving software. “What we have is a simple news-archiving option in one box for $12,500,” says Neal. “And there are options you can get such as additional storage, Blu-ray capability and HSM (hierarchical storage management).” NewsCat Pro is also very simple to learn and use, says Neal, who says it takes three mouse clicks to archive news slugs.

The Shout Out products include the company’s BXF offering, at $9,995. “With our BXF module, you get better integration between traffic and automation,” says Neal, who notes that Crispin installed the BXF module at PBS station WGCU Fort Meyers, FL, in 2007.

Crispin’s Studio Control module, which is aimed at live-programming situations where someone outside of master control might want some limited abilities to roll a break, is now available at $4,995. “It’s a fairly narrow but useful tool,” says Neal.

Last in the Shout-Out lineup is Supervisory View, a timeline view of all the channels that are running for multichannel operations. “It allows you to look at one screen and see potential problems and issues as you’re running your multiple channels,” says Neal, who reports the price is $4,995.

Neal also notes that the broadcast industry is talking about centralization. “We did a large centralization project with Gannett last year,” he says. “We’ve had other inquiries on doing that again. That still seems to be a topic of interest as people look for ways to cut costs.”