[Stooky Bill]

Bringing it back to broadcasting how resource intensive is covering an election now?

We saw how around the Queens death and funeral that sporting events were cancelled as much due to resources (broadcast trucks etc.) being diverted to covering the event rather than just out of respect, so if an election ended up falling around the same time as Glastonbury or Wimbledon could that be problematic, or just force the increasing switch to using fibre connections to cover such events?

Big non news OBs like sport or Glastonbury are massive operations, but there's very little overlap with what will be used for a news event like an election. Events use big scanners (mobile galleries) and high spec cameras. If there's satellite being used then they're large well resourced uplink trucks, often two dish. Events like Wimbledon will have fibre connections because they're regular locations, Glastonbury uses mainly IP, but of course that will be installed for that location.

News uses smaller simpler SNG kit, it has to as its unpredictable and quality isn't as much of a priority.

The only time an OB company is used for something newsy is for say the Coronation or Royal wedding/funeral, then there could be a tussle with regular events. This difference is seen at the BBC where the election will be a BBC News production using lots of in house resources whereas the Coronation will be BBC events production using almost all hired in OB resources.... from companies like NEP.

That said, last election a lot of SNG trucks were hired from other countries for the night as there weren't enough.


Resources back at the broadcaster can be limited however, all those feeds have to be decoded, processed, edited and sent places. Often stuff will be hired in for the night. The election hub at Elstree at ie election had its own satellite downlink and bank of receivers as there wasn't the capacity to send everything there from their usual downlink site.

Doesn't mean that IP will solve that problem, there are limits as to how many can be received on a system like LiveU - broadcasters don't buy/license more receive capacity than they need normally. They'll probably have to expand that capacity, buy in for the night or borrow someone elses.

General elections do push the limits somewhat