What community stations keep telling me

Before writing much code, I spent a while just talking to stations. Three themes came up almost every time.

"We need it to survive the overnight"

Nobody is in the building at 4am. The single most valuable feature isn't clever — it's not falling over, and having a sensible fallback when a file is missing or an audio device disappears.

"Volunteers turn over constantly"

If new presenters need a three-hour training session, that cost recurs forever. Software that can be learned in one shift is worth more to a community station than software with twice the features.

"Our best presenter can't use our current system"

I heard some version of this at a majority of the stations we spoke to. Usually about a presenter who is older or less tech savvy, Broadcast mate provide a clean and simple live-interface for presenters with the more powerful features tucked away safely from accidental changes that could cause disaster.

That third one is why this project exists in the form it does.