In simple terms, Simulcast, which is a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast actually implies programs or events that are broadcast across more than one medium or more than one service on the same medium simultaneously. It is also used for transmitting original language soundtracks of movies or TV series over radio when the television broadcast have been dubbed into a local language.
Simulcast in the earlier methods was a common method. Prior to the development of stereo TV sound transmission, simulcasting on TV and Radio was an effective method used to create stereo sounds for music TV broadcasts. It was in 1974 that simucasting was used for the first time by BBC for the broadcast a recording of Van Morrison's London Rainbow Concert simultaneously on BBC2 TV and Radio 2: see It's Too Late To Stop Now. In the 1980s when Multichannel television Sound or home theater had not yet hit American homes, broadcasters would air high fidelity version of a television program's audio portion over FM stereo simultaneous with the television broadcast.
Simulcast is widely referred to in America as a process where the same programme is aired on an FM and AM station owned by the same entity to economize costs. However, with the development of the solid state AM transmitters and computers, it is now easy for AM stations to broadcast a different format without incurring huge costs; hence simulcast between FM/AM combos is almost unheard of today.Usually AM stations air some kind of discussions or talk format whose form and nature is dependent on the local population. For example, during the Afrikaner rule in South Africa, many programs were dubbed in Afrikaans. But the English soundtrack was available on Radio 2000 which could be selected by pressing a button labeled simulcast which is present in many television sets manufactured before 1995.
Simulcast also widely refers to the practice of simultaneous substitution which is prevalent in Canada. Simulcasting is used in sports when a single announcer broadcasts play-by-play coverage for both television and radio. However, this practice was prevalent during the early days and since the 1980s, most teams resort to using separate announcers for radio and television. It can be a challenging and daunting task to use simulcasting via satellites as prolonged delays can be caused by the distance (nearly 50,000 miles or 80,000 km round-trip) involved.
Simulcast
