Tony Richards built his reputation operating radio stations. Now he wants engineers and operators to know him for software. As CEO of newly launched Fusion Air, he is rolling out broadcast tools meant to keep stations on the air and live shows running smoothly.
Richards owns and operates radio stations in Nashville, TN, and Dothan, AL, as Kensington Digital Media. He was formerly Chief Operations Officer of Federated Media in the late 1990s. Now Fusion Air joins the KDM family. Its first product to market is Broadcast Network Monitor, described as a 24-hour system that can detect when a station is off the air.
Other products in the Fusion Air line include Air Codec, which runs up to five independent codec instances on a single PC, and Sportscaster Pro. Sportscaster Pro includes built-in mic processing, plays commercials and bump music, calls the studio, and verifies everything before the broadcast, while allowing a host to take a show live with one button.
Richards said the company is launching with a full suite of broadcast software, with additional tools in the works.
Fusion Air CEO Tony Richards stated, “Every station deserves to know whether its EAS box or transmitter remote is sitting open on the internet. We built Air Scan so any broadcaster, from a single-station owner to a group engineer, can find out for free and get clear steps to fix it. It’s how we want to introduce Fusion Air: by being useful first.”
