How AZPM Relocated a 24/7 Media Operation Without Missing a Beat

For nearly 70 years, Arizona Public Media (AZPM) operated from spaces in the University of Arizona’s Modern Languages building, which were never designed for modern broadcasting. Television studios occupied former classrooms and labs, repurposed from their original intent as distance-learning studios. Broadcast equipment grew organically over decades. Transmission paths stretched from campus to mountaintop towers and relay sites that deliver PBS, NPR, Classical and Jazz music, and emergency information across Southern Arizona, in addition to AZPM’s award-winning local productions.

Then AZPM prepared to do something few broadcasters ever attempt – move everything. Not just people and office furniture, but also 3 television channels, 4 radio stations, production systems, storage, Active Directory services, transmission paths, and specialized broadcast networks. And they needed to do it while remaining on the air.

"We had to build a Jenga tower that wouldn't collapse," said Jason Katterhenry, AZPM Director of Information Technology.

The project became a study in collaboration between broadcast engineering and UITS. Greg Gutierrez, AZPM's Chief Broadcast Engineer, partnered with Katterhenry to develop the migration strategy, aligning the specialized requirements of a 24/7 broadcast operation with the university's IT environment.

Broadcast facilities operate very differently from traditional campus IT environments. AZPM maintains multiple parallel networks, including enterprise data services, dedicated audio-over-IP infrastructure, and a highly specialized SMPTE 2110 video transport network that supports television production. 

At the same time, AZPM wanted to align with university IT standards wherever possible, leveraging enterprise support models, university purchasing contracts, security practices and centralized IT services. That meant bringing together experts from across UITS and AZPM.

UITS Network Operations (NetOps) engineers Matt Grossman and Dustin Mouton worked closely with the AZPM team to design connectivity solutions capable of supporting broadcast traffic with strict uptime requirements. Katterhenry explains that Grossman's background in amateur radio and radiofrequency (RF) communications proved particularly valuable, ensuring that the new purpose-built infrastructure could support both worlds while maintaining the reliability expected of a 24/7 media operation.

"By the time the cutover occurred, multiple years of collaboration had resulted in a fully functional purpose-built network in the new Paul and Alice Baker Center for Public Media," Grossman said. "We were invited to meetings early in the process to ensure that our design and equipment choices would properly support the broadcast mission and to clearly define boundaries between vendor-provided isolated network 'islands' and our traditional NetOps-managed network."

Garrett Flora and James Bond assisted in migrating administrative files to Box, which simplified the Active Directory migration to Bluecat. Vince Capuano and members of the UITS telecommunications team coordinated complex cabling requirements, while CTS installed broadcast-grade infrastructure alongside the traditional network services.

As the migration accelerated, Katterhenry recounts that nearly every member of NetOps was responding to tickets, adjusting VLAN assignments, enabling ports, and troubleshooting unexpected requirements. At one point, Katterhenry joked that he was participating in six Slack and Microsoft Teams chats simultaneously, coordinating changes in real time.

More importantly, he said there was never a point where UITS said no. Instead, the response was consistently: "Let's figure it out."

That collaborative mindset enabled the team to tackle the migration itself.

Rather than attempting a single cutover, the team developed a phased migration strategy, beginning with simplification of the existing transmission architecture. Some direct transmission paths were retired, reducing dependencies and allowing Mt. Bigelow to temporarily serve as the primary source for certain services.

Next, engineers established a bridge between the Modern Languages building and the new Baker Center. This was possible because much of AZPM's radio infrastructure was already IP-based.

UITS NetOps created network segments that enabled equipment installed at Baker Center to communicate with systems that remained physically in the Modern Languages building.

For a period of time, AZPM effectively operated from two buildings simultaneously. Television signals were converted to video-over-IP, audio was transmitted between facilities, and testing could occur without affecting listeners and viewers.

Radio was the first to migrate. "It was sort of the easiest," Katterhenry said. On transition day, engineers simply shifted IP sources from one building to another. Even then, the audio was still routed back to Modern Languages because the transmitter connections had not yet been moved. Classical music services remained temporarily tied to the original facility until March 3, while television channels, NPR programming, telemetry systems, and other broadcast services migrated in phases between March 16 and April 30.

The result surprised even the engineering team. For most listeners and viewers, the transition went unnoticed.

The migration also provided an opportunity to modernize operations. Administrative staff moved to standardized university IT services, and devices became easier to support. Students can now be onboarded using established UITS processes. Broadcast systems remain highly specialized, but they now operate alongside a support model that leverages the strengths of both AZPM engineers and UITS teams.

The Baker Center itself is a transformational investment in public media. The 61,500-square-foot facility opened in May 2026 and was funded entirely through philanthropy, with support from more than 1,500 donors and community partners. AZPM describes the Baker Center as the nation's most technologically advanced public media facility, purpose-built to support storytelling, journalism, education and community engagement for decades to come.

AZPM Chief Executive Officer Jack Gibson says the building reflects the community's belief in public media and in the university's future.

"This project was made possible by individuals who believed in AZPM's future. Their gifts and support, led by Paul and Alice Baker, are acts of belief in the long-term strengths of this university, this organization and this community." 

That commitment extends well beyond bricks and mortar. AZPM also holds the distinction of having the highest percentage of contributing members relative to its market size among public media organizations nationwide, reflecting Southern Arizona's unusually deep support for public broadcasting. 

But perhaps the most remarkable achievement is one many listeners never noticed at all. 

AZPM relocated an entire media enterprise while continuing to inform, educate and entertain Southern Arizona—one carefully balanced move at a time, much like the Jenga tower Katterhenry envisioned from the start.