History

We know a company's history is important - it is the foundation of the trust and success that we have built with our clients in Canada and the USA.

Our founder's story tells it all and it is why more and more Canadian and American broadcasters turn to Ron Paley Broadcast for their radio station's automation and studio systems design, installation and support.

Our Story

Ron and Ted Paley co-founded with John and Harry Hildebrand, Century 21 Studios in Manitoba in 1968, to service a niche in the professional audio and multi track recording industry. From there, their passion for professional audio and radio bloomed into a long standing dedication and reputation in the industry.

Since their founding of Century 21 Studios, Oakwood Audio Labs Ltd and OMT Technologies Inc, Ron and Ted Paley have been involved as distributors and turnkey integrators of automation, broadcast and recording equipment, studio and transmitter design and installation worldwide.

In 2007, Ted and Ron Paley formed Ron Paley Broadcast to embark in the distribution of new age broadcast products such as digital audio storage systems, air and production studio control surfaces and routers, devices and products that require networks, computers and software and the expertise to make all a working system.

See Some of Our Installations

Broadcast Achievements

1968: Ron and Ted co-founded with John and Harry Hildebrand, Century 21 Recording Studios and installed first professional 8 track multi track recording studio in Winnipeg.

1970: Ron Paley founded Oakwood Audio Labs Ltd to distribute broadcast and recording products to the industry in Canada.

1971: Obtained exclusive marketing rights to distribute TASCAM products by TEAC  in Canada.

Oakwood Audio 1970

Century 21 Studios 1972
 1972: Opened professional concert sound system rental division – won a major contract with the Calgary Stampede and Exhibition to provide recording and on site sound services from 1972 - 1990.

1973: Oakwood sound system and personnel services were selected by The Bobby Vinton Show to provide touring system and stage personnel for Vinton’s appearances in Las Vegas, Tahoe, Reno and other USA based night clubs, state fairs and festivals.

1974: Century 21 Studios builds a Tom Hidley "Westlake "Quad Sound" Recording Studio" in Winnipeg with 24 Track Studer and 48 Channel Neve Recording console.

1974: Opened Oakwood Audio Hi-Fi Stereo showroom to market top end home entertainment and recording equipment. The store was better know as the "The Inconvenient Stereo Store" and its manager Ernie Klem was known as  "Weird Old Ernie".

1975: Won an award as Canada’s largest volume dealer of Teac / Tascam pro products.

1976: Century 21 Studios builds a 2nd State of the Art Recording Studio next to its Westlake room in Winnipeg using a 36 Channel Soundcraft Console and MCI 24 Channel Recording.

1978: Won an award as Canada’s largest volume dealer of Studer / Revox audio products and tape recorders.

1984: Awarded the sound systems, venue mixing and large venue sound systems for the Papal Visit of John Paul the II to Winnipeg and venues around the Winnipeg area.

1988: In conjunction with Century 21 Studios, Oakwood Audio was awarded the supply of sound equipment & operating personnel to Olympic Square Stage for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

1988: Awarded the supply of broadcast equipment for the Broadcasting Media Centre at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

1988: Sold and Installed the very first radio digital based mass storage audio system - D.A.M.S. to Moffat Communications in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Hamilton & Edmonton.
1989: First Canadian pro audio distributor to publish a 120 page buyer catalogue.

1989: Signed exclusive Canadian marketing rights to Media Touch Systems automation software and systems.

1991: Issued Vol.2 of the Oakwood Catalog, another 120 page effort.

1991: First Canadian installation of MediaTouch at OZ-FM St Johns, NF and at CKXL-FM Radio Communitaire Winnipeg, Manitoba.


Ron Paley's  Oakwood Audio
Catalog's Vol. I & II
Another first in Canadian Broadcasting

Ron Paley designs the first 4 Station Automation Duopoly in 1992 		1992: Designed, sold, integrated and installed the world’s first 4 station Super Cluster "Duopoly" MediaTouch automated digital system for Okanagan Skeena Broadcasters in Penticton, BC with affiliated stations in Summerland and Osoyoos, BC.

1993: Ron Paley becomes President of MediaTouch Systems Inc, Salem, NH.

1994: Acquired the ownership and world rights to MediaTouch technology and moved the operations of MediaTouch from Salem, New Hampshire to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

1995: Founded OMT Technologies Inc. a new corporation that managed Oakwood Audio and MediaTouch divisions.

1997: Revolutionized radio automation systems by being the first to use embedded audio codecs in its software making the MediaTouch product truly non-proprietary. MPEG 1, 2 and MP3, Windows Media WMA and REAL record, edit and play on any generic Windows compatible sound card.

1998: Completed sales of iMediaTouch to major US radio broadcasters, CBS New York, Boston and Philadelphia, Radio One Baltimore and Washington, Delmarva Broadcasting in Wilmington DE and Jefferson Pilot in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

1999: Awarded the supply of iMediaTouch Quicpix Software and computer systems for all 29 venues at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg.

1999: Won a NAB Show "Cool Award" for the first showing of the multi channel, multi tasking  iMediaLogger software that revolutionized audio logging for radio.

2000: Won a NAB Show "Cool Award" for developing and showing the iMediaAdcast software that allowed terrestrial broadcasters to simultaneously send a different ad to Internet broadcast when a terrestrial ad was played.

2001: Completed a four year development project in the conversion of DOS based MediaTouch to modular and IP based iMediaTouch with the release of iMediaTouch Version 1.x. Ron and Ted Paley encouraged, supported and financed the revolutionary development proposed by Scott Farr VP Development for building blocks in 32bit Microsoft Windows for database, codecs for audio, TC/IP friendly for Internet and Wide Area and an outstanding GUI rich in graphics for its software products.

2001: OMT Technologies, goes public and is placed on the TSX-Venture Exchange. Ron and Ted Paley are major shareholders and also appointed to the Board of Directors of OMT Inc Public Corporation trading on the TSX Venture Exchange, Toronto.

2002: Oakwood Broadcast, the hardware division, is sold to its direct management and employees and Oakwood becomes a private company. Carol Paley, Rick Ciwko and Darrin Paley depart with Oakwood Broadcast while Ron and Ted Paley remain with OMT.

2004: Ron Paley joins forces with Gary Hooper of HP Services of Thornhill, ON and they build Canada's first AES-EBU radio facility for CanWest Global Communications in Kitchener, ON. All audio paths in the iMediaTouch automation system, Wheatstone digital air consoles, STL air processor and exciter are all AES-EBU in and out. The sound is simply outstanding. 91.5 FM "THE BEAT" soars to the top of the ratings in the Southern Ontario radio market.

2006: Ron Paley with Darrin Paley of Wheatstone Corporation demonstrate at NAB Las Vegas the first iMediaTouch automation system in North America to run 8 channel stereo record and play-out using off the shelf iMediaTouch Version 2 software with Wheatstone Audio Over IP drivers, "no audio cards" and the Wheatstone Bridge Router and a G4 surface console.  In addition iMediaLogger software used the 8 AoIP record channels for 24/7 recording - all products ran went non stop for the entire show.

2007: Ron Paley and OMT as a sub contractor to Azcar of Toronto, closed one of its largest installations of iMediaTouch automation for American Forces Radio of Riverside, CA. OMT to provide all broadcast automation software, hardware and custom development for the KLOTZ audio consoles and many programming features unique to AFRTS. AFRTS broadcasts 17 unique audio channels to the American Forces that can be based anywhere in the world.

2007: Ted Paley retired from OMT in 2004, then joins Ron Paley Broadcast a company founded by Ron Paley to serve the radio industry with design, integration and installation of the new media hardware and software for radio studios. RPB was appointed as the exclusive Canadian Wheatstone - Vorsis dealer with Ted Paley as its Business Manager.

2008: Ted & Ron Paley score a major sales breakthrough in Canada with Wheatstone "Bridge" Surface Router Systems for Evanov Broadcasting Toronto studio facility. Operations and Engineering Manager Adam Robinson found the Wheatstone Bridge system easy to install and ready to Air in relatively short order. For more details, see the Evanov "Wheatstone Upgrade" Project in the Ron Paley Broadcast website.

2008: Kris Rodts Director of Engineering at CKUA Edmonton Alberta signed an agreement with OMT Technologies Inc to develop a Ron Paley designed centralized 39TB Server. The Isilon Server system was to house a digitally produced music library of over 1 million music titles that would interface to the iMediaTouch On Air System at CKUA. Additional features were multi user archiving, multi user on demand music and metadata retrieval for play-out over the CKUA Radio Network and its Website. The system was delivered in the spring of 2009, integrated, installed with CKUA personnel training all managed by OMT Technology technicians.

2009: Todd Coombs of the Maritime Broadcasting Radio Network of Halifax, NS signed a Purchase Agreement with Ron Paley and OMT Technologies to a complete a 27 station overhaul replacing their Scott System automation and Selector Music Scheduling with iMediaTouch and Music Master. All the 27 site upgrades would have to be delivered, installed and staff trained within six weeks of the first installation, including the integration of an innovative Internet delivered centralized music and commercial scheduling system designed by MBS Programming. OMT Technicians Robert Parsons, Ron Taylor, Todd Coombs and Wayne Lemoine of MBS and Ron Paley delivered all upgrades in time and on time. Ted Paley of RPB worked with Todd Coombs to also deliver a complete replacement of the MBS Saint John, NB facility Air and Studio consoles to Wheatstone IP based E6 Surfaces and Blade Routers. WOW! Great work RPB, OMT, and MBS personnel to pull this off and seamlessly we might add.

2009: December 23, 2009 After a career in broadcasting that spanned over 40 years of activities, Ron Paley Founder and Past President of OMT Technologies Inc retires from active duty and employment at the OMT Corporate Headquarters in Winnipeg, MB Canada. Ron joins his brother Ted in the daily operations of Ron Paley Broadcast that was founded in 2006 to serve broadcasters with the latest in IP consoles, routers, computer networks and turnkey studios. Shore104-FM Vancouver is the first joint project with HP Services followed by new studios for DAWG-FM Ottawa and Bayshore Broadcasting in Orillia, ON.