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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete.--Kungfu Adam (talk) 15:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alice Soundtech

[edit]

Notability disputed Dweller 11:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have created the article and listed it here for deletion in an attempt to resolve a dispute (here). Given this background, please try as hard as possible to keep this Afd civil. --Dweller 11:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment. What's the background? - jlao 04 11:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the background. - jlao 04 11:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral - As an informal, self-appointed, interfering old wannabe mediator, it seems to me that I should not voice an opinion on this Afd. --Dweller 11:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Now that I've seen the claims of notability, I'm even more convinced they are not important enough to be covered in an encyclopedia article. Lets get all the Fortune 1000 covered before we write articles on mom and pops. I suggest a 100 million revenue minimum for corps to cover. - Taxman Talk 21:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notability information - Below are various new notability signs about "Alice Soundtech"/"Alice Broadcast". -- 62.147.86.249 15:53, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • From the Ofcom (Office of Communications, the UK's communications regulator, formerly Oftel) in a 1996 publication [1], "Competition Issues in Terrestrial Broadcast Transmission": " Chapter 2: market and competition analysis [...] Transmission equipment is increasingly being supplied by a few small specialist companies such as Alice Soundtech, SSVC and SBS, particularly to small independent radio stations with lower power transmission requirements. " [2]
    • In an official application to the Ofcom (in order to get an FM radio license), the would-be director's resume says in section "Ability to maintain proposed service": " He moved to the UK in 1995 and has worked in high profile positions in the broadcast engineering sector ever since. At Alice Soundtech (1995-1998) he developed a good direct knowledge and relationship with many key players in UK broadcasting " (Given in this context, it means Alice is a "high profile position" well-known to the Ofcom people and namedropping them is supposed to be impressive.) (PDF)
    • An independent assessment made by Radiquip (a radio equipment renting company): " Manufactured by Alice Broadcast Solutions the desk has proven popular with hospital radio stations for many years. Whilst its big sister the Alice Air 2000 desk is used extensively by ILR stations, the Series A has proven a popular choice for smaller community based stations, RSL's, and training studios around the world. " [3]
    • From an independent press release of Bryant Broadcast: " Alice appoint Bryant Broadcast as a new distributor (5 Feb 2004) Bryant Broadcast has now become an official distributor for Alice Broadcast Products. In particular we stock a number of the more popular "PAK" boxes, which are widely used in edit suites, studios, etc. to 'mix-and-match' domestic and line level equipment. " [4]
    • From independent reseller CP Sound: " Alice soundtech build problem solving boxes to interface unbalanced to balanced units, splitters and stereo source combiners for every eventuality. [The founder and owner of CP Sound] states that they are a very professional company and would recommmend using them where ever possible. " [5]
    • From the resume of an executive at the UK branch of Radio Computing Services ("the world's leading provider of broadcast software"): " Ben has been at the forefront of technical supply and management in the UK broadcasting industry since 1990 when he joined Alice Soundtech plc, a turnkey broadcast equipment manufacturer and transmission provider. " [6]
    • From the "The Creative Team" (graphic house that made their brochure): " A new brochure for Alice Broadcast Solutions, an established name in broadcasting, brought their extensive range into the 21st century " [7]
    • From their own history page: " Alice was first company to produce 'off the shelf' broadcasting equipment in high volumes. This was a revolutionary concept for the industry " [8]
    • It should be noted that of course, community or hospital radios rarely provide the list of their equipment, thus manufacturers in that branch aren't much visible, even if very present on a market. Thus, it's probably significative that we can still find quite some, such as:
      • From the UNESCO's "Intergovernmental Council of the IPDC; 23rd; New projects" about a "Production of radio programmes for young people on the rights of the child" project, equipment list: " Mixing table (Alice Soundtech A-3 inputs). " (PDF)
      • From "Chippenham Hospital Radio - Engineering - For the geeks among us" infos: " The mixing desk is probably the most important part of the studio - we use an Alice Soundtech Series A desk with 18 channels " [9] and " The old EELA desk [...] The New Alice Soundtech Desk " [10] (so that's the gear they have chosen when upgrading)
      • From "Hospital Radio Tunbridge Wells - Our Technology": " These are all connected together using an Alice Air 2000 mixing desk, which allows the presenter to be in complete control of the equipment. The output of the mixing desk is what the patients hear at their bedside. " [11]
      • From "Portsmouth Hospital Radio - Studio Three": " It houses a broadcast control desk (Alice Soundtech 'A' Series) " [12]
      • From "Ben Gamblin - Broadcasting" infos: " Alice Soundtech Series A Mixer Desk " [13]
      • In an official application to the Ofcom (in order to get an FM radio license), the "Flame FM on Wirral" radio lists its equipment: " Transmitter (Manufacturer) (model) Alice Soundtech GTx20 " (PDF)
      • From The Radio Magazine, in an article where some other company names are followed with an explanation, they are casually mentionned like all readers in this biz already know them: " Forever Broadcasting and Alice Soundtech PLC are backing the Splash FM bid " [14]
      • From the mailing list of the Community Media Association [15], a 2002 thread about "Broadcast equipment needed": " Resonance FM one of the UK pilot access stations is now buying its broadcast studio equipment - anyone selling or with knowledge of where to get quality broadcast desks and equipment secondhand please reply [...] Try Alice Soundtech... not exactly cheap but damn good gear. " [16]
    • I'd add that I also stumbled on various yellow pages and catalogues in German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, French, Polish, indirectly confirming their claim to be used internationally, such as their saying " a popular choice for smaller community based stations, RSL's, and training studios around the world ".
  • Keep - IMO, the official Ofcom document analyzing the UK market and citing 3 main companies including Alice Soundtech would be quite enough for WP:CORP alone, considering the governmental source and the fact that this domain isn't one popularly written about. And I think it's clear they're "an established name in broadcasting" to professionals in the radio business: being very notable inside a given domain is important even when relatively unknown to the main populace. (Full disclosure, I researched the above material. I am however not linked in any way with this company.) -- 62.147.86.249 15:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment WP:CORP: "The product or service has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works" — one passing mention of the company's existence in a lengthy Ofcom report does not in my opinion qualify the company as "the subject of a non-trivial published work". "casually mentionned like all readers in this biz already know them" is a bit of an extrapolation, to put it mildly. Catalogue entries and sales brochures are not admissible under WP:CORP, and mailing lists are inadmissible under WP:RS. Demiurge 16:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Sounds like they make good mixers, boards and other audio equipment, but no articles are presented from, say the audio or broadcasting press to show notability even within one industry. And as for the claim "first company to produce 'off the shelf' broadcasting equipment in high volumes" one might check [17] to see many companies (RCA, Gates Radio, General Electric, Westinghouse, Collins Radio) supplying off the shelf broadcast equipment long before this company was a twinkle in anyone's eye. Edison 17:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Counter-comments (in answer to Demiurge's comments):
    • For one thing, since the Ofcom report is about a different topic (competition in the radio market), it is telling that some companies of mere hardware get mentionned at all. And for another thing, it's about the weight of the source: when Ofcom says those three companies are the main suppliers of transmission equipment, it provides a great authoritativeness to the information, regardless of the main topic of the document. IMO, this claim in a governmental document, that Alice is one of the main players, shows as much notability as three dedicated puff pieces in industry magazines. It's about the spirit of the notability criterion, not the letter: a non-notable, local company simply doesn't get mentionned as one of the three main players in an Ofcom document, whatever the main topic of said document.
    • Another point about the "Ofcom criterion" would be: would accepting it open a Pandora box of hundreds of small companies being justified too? No: the Ofcom report mentions only three names. And those three companies Ofcom list as main players on this market, why wouldn't they be documented in Wikipedia? How can this market and domain and topic be covered on Wikipedia, if even the top 3 players named by the authoritative Ofcom aren't allowed on Wikipedia?
    • "Catalogue entries and sales brochures" may not be admissible for their content itself (commercial hype), but they can still provide good hints, since we're not just talking about an abstract company but also its products and its sales. For instance, if a company's products can be found all over the world in all catalogues from resellers, then it does provide another sign of notability: a non-notable, local company's products just aren't sold and found everywhere.
    • The other items aren't convincing by themselves, sure, but such accumulation of different sources help show there's something there, at least for casting a reasonable doubt against just immediately killing the article without further investigation. (If there's only a handful of highly specialized industry magazines, for a relatively very small readership, finding dedicated articles online is illusory, it'd require a professional to lookup specialized databases in his library.)
    • -- 62.147.86.249 20:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • More notability informations
    • Infos from scholar papers (one full article, and plenty of mentions showing it's also quite used in labs):
      • In Broadcast Systems International (Vol. 16, pp. 46-7. Jan. 1990) a whole article entitled "Soundtech Series A mixer" about this product (search result, article content available only in library) -- that's all about one of their key product (Soundtech Series A on Alice's site).
      • In the thesis Features for Audio-Visual Speech Recognition (School of Information Systems, University of East Anglia, September 1998) p.36 mentions: " [The recording] was adjusted for each talker through a Soundtech Series A audio mixing desk and fed to the video recorder. " [18]
      • In the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research (Vol.46 1184-1196 October 2003), "The Influence of Phonemic Awareness Development on Acoustic Cue Weighting Strategies in Children's Speech Perception", the scientist mentions: " tokens were recorded onto digital audiotape (Sony, Model DTC-60ES) via microphone (Sony, Model ECM-77B) and amplifier (Alice Soundtech Plc, Model Mic-Amp-Pak 2) and were transferred to computer for analysis " [19]
      • In the thesis Implementation of an Interactive Mathematics Tutor utilising Participatory Design methods (cs.bath.ac.uk, 2005) p.53 mentions: " All sounds for the game were recorded as *.wav audio files through an Alice Soundtech Series A broadcast mixing desk using Cool Edit Pro 2.0. " [20]
    • Infos from business news and books:
      • At Alacra, "The Premium Business Information Source", is sold a booklet of "Company Profiles & Financials" published by Dun & Bradstreet about "ALICE SOUNDTECH LTD" (search result, content is premium) -- I reckon D&B doesn't have a dedicated company profile book about just any UK company, so that would be another sort of WP:CORP publication.
      • At Alacra again, is sold a 1996 document entitled "Headline project for ASC" from Pro Sound News Europe that mentions " [...] fully equipped on-air studios together with Audionics matrix switchers, audio workstations and other equipment from Alice Soundtech. " (search result, content is premium)
      • In the book The Sound Production Handbook (by Don Atkinson, John Overton, Terry Cavagin, 1995), a book "covering basic sound theory and all aspects of sound operations within television and broadcasting", on page 191, "Appendix C: Television organizers and manufacturers", is listed "Alice Soundtech" (search result, content is premium) (book TOC)
    • -- 62.147.86.249 20:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the references cited in this discussion amount to nothing but passing references-- they are evidence that this is a real corporation, but not eveidence that the corporation is notable. And it appears from the history given that the article itself was created out of a motivation contrary to the spirit of WP:POINT. This article is more of a directory entry than an article that anyone would truly learn from. Developing it further would only turn it into an advertisement. OfficeGirl 21:35, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some more notability information
    • They operate some transmission sites for Independent Local Radio such as TalkSPORT and Virgin Radio (from the Virgin Group):
      • A large mast in Boston, Lincolnshire: " Boston is an Alice Soundtech site bringing the AM services of TalkSPORT and Virgin Radio to Lincolnshire and North Norfolk. " [21]
      • From 1993 to 2001, the 33 metres mast station in Swindon and others: " The site and equipment was owned by Virgin Radio and operated / maintained by Alice Soundtech. There were 5 sites like this (Swindon, Boston, Gatwick, Lydd and Pirbright (Guildford). " [22]
      • (This website is badly indexed by search engines, so there may be more.)
    • From the UK business directory Internet192: " Alice mixing consoles are the preferred choice of equipment for some 90% of radio stations [in the UK] " [23]
    • From the resume of 3TS Broadcasting's CEO: " Howard previously headed Alice Soundtech PLC (as Managing Director) the UK's largest Radio Broadcast Equipment Manufacturer and Turnkey Radio Studio Solutions company. " [24]
    • -- 62.147.39.76 10:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment : the UK broadcast industry should be covered, and a few of its players, even if they're notable only inside this industry, rather than to the mass public. The topic of the UK's Independent Local Radio and Restricted Service Licence links to a few articles about UK local radios or TVs, but has not much background for the hardware industry behind it (mixing consoles and transmitters). The official Ofcom reports provides an authoritative source about which main players can have an article. -- 62.147.39.76 10:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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