Technical & Engineering
Aircheck
A recorded, verified copy of a broadcast, historically captured on magnetic tape and now archived completely digitally.
What is Aircheck?
An Aircheck is an archival recording of actual on-air broadcast content, capturing exactly what listeners heard. Stations maintain rolling airchecks for regulatory compliance, affidavit verification, talent performance review, and dispute resolution. Historically these were cassette or reel-to-reel recordings requiring manual filing; modern broadcast automation captures continuous digital airchecks that can be searched, trimmed, and retrieved instantly.
For commercial operations, airchecks are evidence. If an advertiser disputes whether a spot aired, whether it aired at the correct time, or whether it aired with proper audio quality, the aircheck settles the question. Automated aircheck systems that extract per-spot clips on demand save sales and traffic teams hours of manual digging per week — a quiet productivity win that compounds across every dispute.
Why it matters
Spotwise.ai automates the generation of airchecks for specific commercials, saving engineers and sales staff vast amounts of manual archiving time.
Related terms
- Automation— Complex software and hardware ecosystems (e.
- Dead Air— A terrifying period of unintended silence during a broadcast caused by technical failure, automation crash, or severe operator error.
- A-D Converter— Analog-to-Digital Converter; specialized hardware that translates continuous analog electrical signals into binary digital data (1s and 0s).
- Actuality (Sound Bite)— Unfiltered, raw audio recordings captured on location outside the controlled studio, featuring interviews or ambient background sound.