Life After Lockdown saw all of the gallery team work from home
By Jenny Priestley
Published: May 18, 2020
Life After Lockdown saw all of the gallery team work from home
target=_blank title=Share on LinkedIn class=share-linkedin> Life After Lockdown saw all of the gallery team work from home
https://www.tvbeurope.com/live-production/how-sky-news-broadcast-the-worlds-first-fully-remote-news-programme title=Share via Email class=share-email>
On Friday 15th May, Sky News became the first news broadcaster to go fully remote. Life After Lockdown, a half-hour show hosted by Sarah-Jane Mee, was broadcast with every contributor and every member of the production team working from home.
The live broadcast was the culmination of a project the team at Sky News had been working on since the government first introduced lockdown measures in the UK. Sky's been quite ahead of the game in terms of remote working, Ben Wickham, head of studio output, tells TVBEurope.
Sky News is the rolling 24 hour news station that encompasses all the live sources that we do and so it's proven quite difficult to take it fully remote, the way that other TV channels have been able to, he continues. It's something that we've worked on in conjunction with the rest of our production services, who have actually done similar programmes on Sky Sports channels and on Sky Sports News. We've taken what they've done and we've tried to do a little bit more with the technology. The reason why we've done it now is because this is the culmination of we've been working on over the last few weeks, and we're in a place where we think we can launch what we consider to be a premium output.
Viewers saw host Sarah-Jane Mee on air with Sky's economics editor Ed Conway, diplomatic editor Dominic Waghorn, Tamara Cohen from the politics team and David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation's global envoy for Covid-19. They were joined by guests from around the world who appeared on air via Zoom.
In terms of the gallery team, producer Nick Stylianou was in Stockwell, director James Whicher worked from home in Camberley, Wickham worked as a back-up director, keeping across all the feed in case anyone's internet dropped out, and Kevin Donaldson, another member of Wickham's team, managed the Zoom calls.
We used vMix, which is a third party platform and it's essentially a gallery in a box, explains Wickham. You can build your own sources and inputs. We put it on an Amazon Web server, so we remote into that Amazon Web server using a Teradici client, which is set up at James Whicher's home. That handles all of the IP, most of the audio and he can cut, mix and all that kind of thing. He then created a web page within the vMix software which we used for talkback and to run VT. We all had access so it was kind of a virtual vision and sound mix at the same time. We also kept in contact with each other and the Osterley operation via our own Riedel talkback system, we used the iOS app and had it running on iPads.
While some of the technology has been used by Sky Sports for their Cricket Watchalong, Wickham believes the broadcast was a world first for a news programme. We certainly had more content, we were running VT, graphics sequences, all from within the streaming software, he explains.
Obviously there was lots of testing before the production team were given the green light for the show to go to air. Wickham says the team had been working on putting everything together for about three weeks. That was off the back of the work that Sky production services have already done. But what we were trying to do was the virtual gallery. We had a PCI in the Cloud. That didn't exist two weeks ago, and so we built that up from scratch. We spent the last week kind of testing all the integrations, testing the Zoom calls, testing the ins and outs of this. We ran a kind of pilot back to Osterley so we could check that they could see it and all the talkbacks were working, and we've been popping up for half an hour here and there to make sure the show worked. We ran as many rehearsals as we felt we needed to make sure we're happy with the technology, but it was still a little bit of a leap in the dark.
Asked if Sky News is likely to produce more content with a completely remote team, Wickham admits it's a complex situation. If we're very honest, the slightly restricted set-up that something like this remote show has works very well if you have a very static running order, which is something that we don't have very often in news. So, if I'm being honest, it probably isn't something we would roll out for long chunks of time. However the ability to spin up remote programmes and create bespoke and premium Sky News content remotely allows us to create events like Life After Lockdown.
We can produce shows without having to bring people into the studio premises because as much as possible, we're trying to reduce the amount of people that we have in our newsrooms and in our gallery spaces. So it's very useful for that, he concludes.
SubscribeFor more stories like this, and to keep up to date with all our market leading news, features and analysis, sign up to our newsletter here.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
01/09/2025
Monitoring audio and video content in today's increasingly complex media environment requires more flexibility than ever. Fortunately, broadcasters' ado...
01/09/2025
A football season unlike any other is taking shape in a conflicted broadcast environment where big-game producers are delivering unprecedented viewing experienc...
01/09/2025
Moving live pictures from place to place was once a feat so spectacular that the European Broadcasting Union invented the Eurovision Song Contest, which has bec...
01/09/2025
24 players have entered Slane Castle ready to outwit, outplay and outlast in the ultimate game of trust and deception.
The Traitors Ireland has commenced.
Her...
01/09/2025
First time television presenter Cathal Dowd, aged 23, from Wexford is the newest addition to the news2day team. news2day is RT 's news service designed spec...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
Life After Lockdown saw all of the gallery team work from home
