Jo Auston, production executive at Multistory Media explains how technology kept ITVs The Martin Lewis Money Show on air during the UKs first lockdown.
By Contributor
Published: December 17, 2020
Jo Auston, production executive at Multistory Media explains how technology kept ITV's The Martin Lewis Money Show on air during the UK's first lockdown.
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> Jo Auston, production executive at Multistory Media explains how technology kept ITV's The Martin Lewis Money Show on air during the UK's first lockdown.
https://www.tvbeurope.com/live-production/case-study-keeping-the-martin-lewis-money-show-on-air-during-covid title=Share via Email class=share-email>
Martin Lewis has been dubbed the most trusted man in Britain' because of his financial expertise and the advice that he and his team provide via his MoneySavingExpert website and his TV appearances, including his own primetime ITV series The Martin Lewis Money Show.
MultiStory Media, part of ITV Studios, produces the programme which is now on its tenth series. I am the production executive and work across all the key aspects of this production, which varies between pre-recorded and live shows.
Back in March, before any UK social distancing requirements and lockdown were put in place, my team was commissioned to produce a one-off Martin Lewis Money Show special looking at Coronavirus issues. As the virus started to dominate the headlines, it was clear that people wanted information and we started being inundated with questions from viewers.
As the first programme proved popular, 15 shows in total were commissioned. We produced the first three episodes from our studio in White City, London, but when a full lockdown was put in place across the UK, we knew we had to work very differently, remotely producing the show to keep the team safe. We took this decision in the space of an hour and we had very, very little time to work out how we would do it.
The team behind the show, including series producer Clare Miller and production manager Anthony Chuck, got together with series director Richard Jack and started working out how to make an entertaining, informative programme with no live audience, social distancing, and limited access for production.
Martin already contributed to other ITV Daytime shows via FaceTime, Zoom and Skype and we did wonder whether we could expand that setup for his live programme, but it very quickly became apparent this wouldn't work at all from both quality and resilience perspectives.
We work very closely with ITV Daytime in that we share their studio space. The ITV Daytime technology manager, Tim Guilder, helped us reach out to Jeff Williams, owner of technical services supplier MediaSat. Jeff is very familiar with ITV Daytime and is someone with whom various members of MultiStory Media have worked over the years.
Via a long-term relationship with LiveU and its UK partner Garland Partners, both Tim and Jeff are familiar with LiveU's live streaming/encoding technology, having used it extensively.
This was central to what we ended up deploying. Richard Jack, the series director, is also very technically astute and has worked closely with both Tim and Jeff previously in ITV Daytime.
With Martin deciding to broadcast from home as lockdown continued, the team had to devise a way of creating a studio in his home. His home office actually worked really well. Anthony Chuck explains, Clare, Richard and I did a virtual recce of Martin's home feeding back to Tim and Jeff. The first week we produced the show remotely we used a very simple set up and it was up and running in a day-and-a-half. The technology we used grew across the series as we came to understand more what we could do, but all the essentials were there from the outset. The day before that first show we did a full tech rundown/rehearsal and we were so happy it worked.
No members of the crew were allowed to be stationed in Martin's office for the filming, so Jeff decided to produce it using remote cameras. He says: I had used these previously, mainly on live events - concerts and conferences - but never in a live TV environment. We also decided on using LiveU for the feeds from Martin's house.
The number of cameras used meant that Jeff needed to use two OB units with a camera controller sitting in the second truck outside Martin's house in London, with two LiveU LU300 units in the main truck.
Jeff says, All of us had one opportunity to go in and set this up for social distancing reasons. As mentioned, the set up did grow across the series (which in total numbered 15 episodes) as we all learnt what was possible. But in terms of his house, we really had the one opportunity as we couldn't keep going in and out.
Things that you would normally take for granted, we couldn't. We had to anticipate any problems. Apart from the cameras, we put two of everything in there: radio mics, floor mics (wired) in case there was interference on the radio mics for any reason and so on. We also had to set up an uninterruptible power supply.
The remote cameras were cabled from Martin's office, through a window and out to the trucks. The equipment was then connected in the garden while adhering to safety requirements.
Jeff says, We have a lot of experience with IP encoders, especially LiveU, not only across cellular networks but also using LiveU with Ka-Band. This is a very powerful combination. It came as a surprise to us, but where Martin lives there was almost no 4G connectivity so we used Ka-Sat dishes, one on each truck, with the two LiveU LU300 encoders (HEVC) connected, and ITV producing the show remotely. It all worked exactly the way it should.
Martin's wife, Lara, ended up acting as floor manager/tech assistant - and became the ba
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
In a live broadcast from the Reagan National Defense Forum, L3Harris Chair and CEO Christopher Kubasik joined Morgan Brennan on CNBCs Closing Bell: Overtime. Ku...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils the First Look for Land of Sin' - Premier...
05/12/2025
Introducing New Perks to Help You Get Even More from LinkedIn Premium Published on Dec 5, 2025 Categories: Company News, Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Co...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
Jo Auston, production executive at Multistory Media explains how technology kept ITVs The Martin Lewis Money Show on air during the UKs first lockdown.
