Remodelling its studios to support more flexible operation, UK broadcaster ITV has constructed new facilities in the Wales, Channel, Tyne Tees, Central, West Country, and Anglia ITV regions – all of which have SSL C10 HD Plus broadcast consoles in their sound studios.
The changes began with its people and the development of skillsets to enable staff to fill a wider range of roles: ‘We don’t have conventional roles any more,’ explains Steve Teague, Head of Technical Services for ITV News Group. ‘That’s not to say they don’t specialise or feel they’ve got one or two particular skills, but most people have a basic level of skill in all aspects of our production and workflow.
‘Some people have “super-user” knowledge, so if it was a question of re-configuring something we’d get the super-user in for that given area and they would do the work. I wouldn’t expect everybody to be able to reconfigure the sound desk from the ground up, but some people certainly could.’
The move also required newsroom technology to be as straightforward for operators to use as possible but also to be sufficiently flexible to support different levels of production complexity. For peak output, the operator requirements are more demanding, but for off-peak it is necessary to switch workflow to accommodate fewer staff. ‘There are fundamentally a number of positions that have to be filled to put a normal programme on air – producer, technical direction, vision, sound and so on,’ says Teague. ‘For early morning and late night bulletins, the sound operation can become a remote panel in the main gallery. The workflow is changed at that point.’
To make things more demanding, most of the new galleries have more than one output. For example, in the Central region there are East and West outputs. Normally one of those outputs is live and one is pre-recorded, though those can be opted in or out so there is also the option of switching to a single ‘pan-regional’ output when required. ‘It’s both quite intense and very flexible from that point of view. Not many galleries produce more than one output.’
These needs were met by the SSL C10 HD Plus consoles: ‘Reliability and ease of use,’ Teague identifies. ‘People like the interface – the logical layout.’ He cites the console’s Automix and C-Play spot and music playout features: ‘Automix is great for when we have multiple guests, and C-Play has been very useful’
Broadcast systems integrator IPE Systems was involved in the original facility ‘template’ design, and was responsible for delivering the studios at the Tyne Tees, Central, West Country and Anglia ITV regions, adapting the basic infrastructure requirements specifically for each one.
‘Each studio has a production control room, a sound control room, several edit suites, a news room, and a voiceover booth,’ says Ray Bragg, Director at IPE Systems. ‘One of the key features of the studios is the tight technology integration we were able to achieve with SSL, Clear-Com and the Axon Cerebrum broadcast control system. In fact, this project has stood out particularly for its very collaborative development – ourselves, ITV, SSL and the other manufacturers worked together on this, looking at what functionality was required and getting it to work. There was no finger pointing; we solved issues together in a way that ITV has been delighted with.
‘For us, a key feature of the C10 is the ability to present the surface to operators in a relatively simple way so you don’t need an audio specialist to drive it. A competent person can drive a show even though there is some quite complex configuration hidden underneath.
‘The other useful aspect was a generous pool of delays that we are able to control remotely, enabling the user to see and hear lip sync at the flick of a button rather than having to do it externally, which makes things much more straightforward.’
