The visit aimed to provide the students with an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the work environment of the Radio and Television Authority, especially the studios in which the audio-visual content of all programs broadcast in the name of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are prepared.

At the beginning of the visit, representatives of the commission escorted the university students to the main control room in which all government television programs are shown, including: the Saudi channel, the Noble Qur’an channel, the Sunnah channel, the News channel, and “Thekrayat” channel. In the control room, the students examined the modern technical devices that are used in the process of controlling and displaying signals in detail on large screens that fill the entire corners of the room.

Then representatives of the authority escorted the students into the studio of the News channel and explained all the advanced capabilities of the studio, including: the video-wall technology on which weather news is shown behind the weather broadcaster. Then the students moved to the studio of the “Deertna” program and watched the possibilities of changing the decorations installed inside the studio and how they were changed smoothly in order to give the viewer the appropriate atmosphere for each program.

After that, the representatives of the authority escorted the university students to the control room of each of the studios mentioned. They explained in detail the communication devices and networks used to connect the studio to its control room, and how the technical staff, such as the director and the executing director, use the communication devices to control the sound and lighting inside the studio. They also detailed the techniques used to connect studio outputs to the main console and broadcast networks.

After that, the students headed to the headquarters of the radio studios, where representatives of the authority received the students inside the radio theater to give them a small lecture about the techniques they used before seeing them. Then the students moved into the headquarters of the Riyadh Radio Studio, in which was one of the chief broadcasters in the authority, while broadcasting a radio program live. The students witnessed how the program director receives phone calls from guests and delivers them inside the studio using the latest audio mixing equipment, each of which costs nearly half a million Saudi riyals.

Then the students moved to the studio of broadcasting the Holy Quran broadcast live on the air and it was working automatically, as the technical staff programmed the live broadcast in advance. The students also saw the announcer of the Noble Qur’an channel, as he was going to another studio, recording a clip in which he narrated an honorable prophetic hadith in a pure, humble voice, in order to then revise the recording and prepare it for broadcast at a later time.

Finally, the authority’s representatives explained to the university students the communication networks used to connect the headquarters of the TV tower with all transmission stations inside the Kingdom through fiber-optic networks and satellite networks, and explained how to manage these networks in a way that ensures the continuity of broadcasting even in the event of normal malfunctions or in cases of crises or natural disasters God forbid.

At the end of the visit, students asked about the possibility of joining the Radio and Television Authority during the COOP training program. The commission happily agreed and told the students about the special department within the Saudi Broadcast Authority which is  responsible for COOP programs. PSU students will be happily invited to join SBA in case an official request to do so is received from PSU and based upon and the availability of the appropriate disciplines suitable for students’ field of study.

It is worth noting that the students themselves made a previous visit about a month ago to the radio transmission broadcasting stations in Janadriyah, and that visit was a prelude to the current visit. The students enjoyed visiting the TV tower because of the atmosphere and techniques they saw which they were studying in the lecture hall, but without a clear idea of how to operate these complex techniques in reality. The representatives of the authority were also impressed by the intelligence and knowledge of PSU students and their ability to raise important and interesting questions.