Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

ITV Charts IP-based Future with Clear-Com

01/08/2020

Broadcaster rolls out IP wireless intercom and communications system across entire operation-

Getting 11 separate regional studios to communicate seamlessly with zero disruptions to on-air time is no small feat, but ITV has accomplished that with help from Clear-Com's IP-based wireless communications systems. Working with primary system integrator IPE, the UK broadcaster recently converted three studios to the FreeSpeak II wireless intercom system, completing its company-wide adoption of Clear-Com that began in 2014.

ITV noted it chose Clear-Com's technology for its flexibility, easy deployment and ability to deliver clear audio quality between studios and remote locations.

The Clear-Com system provides the basic building blocks we need to cost-effectively add functionality while increasing operations efficiency and productivity with minimal learning curves, said Steve Teague, Head of Technical Services, ITV News Group. The system has proven to be efficient to configure and install, with the staff at each studio able to maintain their familiar workflows.

The first phase of ITV's conversion was completed in 2017, accomplishing the broadcaster's goals of establishing a MADI and IP production workflow foundation across all its sites. A Clear-Com solution - consisting of Eclipse HX-Delta digital matrix platform with V-Series control panels, MVX and MADI cards - was rolled out across ITV Tyne Tees (Newcastle), ITV West Country (Bristol), ITV Central (Birmingham), ITV Anglia (Norwich), ITV Wales (Cardiff) and ITV Channel (Jersey and Guernsey).

We've established a reliable and flexible communications backbone for the distribution of audio and data signals across hundreds of users within an intercom system network, Teague said.

The initial system was unique in its ability to seamlessly integrate with IP-based software intercoms for remote users on virtual panels, using Agent-IC, with intelligent trunking over CAT5, POTS, IP, Fibre and MADI. The system installed at each regional site also provided talk-back to the news studios and satellite newsgathering trucks. The V-Series panels installed at ITV's remote sites connected to the main studio via IP, giving them the MADI capability to connect directly to ITV's Solid State Logic audio desks.

The addition of FreeSpeak II earlier in 2020 to three more sites-Meridian, Granada and Yorkshire (replacing systems from Trilogy, which has since been acquired by Clear-Com in 2017)-now allows ITV teams to produce news packages more efficiently and communicate among all sites and field reporters in a more streamlined way.

The addition of LQ Series IP interfaces and the Agent-IC mobile app for remote productions contributes to the flexibility of ITV's capabilities and has proved critical during the COVID shutdown, enabling studio-based roles to be performed at home.

The adoption of Clear-Com technology has significantly enhanced the ITV production workflow, Teague said. A typical broadcast day begins at 5:30 a.m. and ends close to midnight, with the system in operation throughout as the ITV studios and remote field teams continually produce live bulletins and prerecorded segments and insertions.

For example, one program might be produced in a studio with five cameras, two presenters plus studio technicians on the floor using Clear-Com beltpacks. These may include the prompt operator and a manual camera operator. The gallery environment also has a Clear-Com system with at least five panels (for sound, video, director, producer, etc.). The newsroom, located outside the gallery, will have another producer's panel plus channels for contributing regions. According to ITV, the Clear-Com system ties everything together perfectly.

ITV uses it for remote and base communications and as a SIP interface, so it is a central part of their daily operations.

The most recent phase of the Clear-Com/ITV collaboration is highlighted by ITV's adoption of the Clear-Com FreeSpeak II system, which also helped ITV make more efficient use of frequency space cleared in the 700 MHZ band. The broadcaster was able to prioritize what needed to stay in the spectrum, such as radio mics, as well as better allocate the space to largely deal with production talk-back among regional stations via an IP backbone. The Clear-Com system allows ITV to use more rechargeable batteries versus disposables, and also requires less power consumption. Plus, the fact that it's essentially one network reduces the need to interface with other systems, further reducing power consumption.

With FreeSpeak II, ITV has more flexibility to manage the limited staff resources across its news operation. The beltpack's ability to also act as a panel allows more tasks to be done in parallel. Having IP connectivity between remote sites enables the system's trunking nature, making it seem that there is one seamless network connecting all of ITV, rather than separate networks for each site. For example, one site can act as a national hub feeding content to the regions when handling large national news stories.

The conversion to Clear-Com completes ITV's future-proofing' as an all-IP environment, Teague added, allowing us to implement not only a flexible and seamless communications workflow across our entire operations, but also a logical and cost-effective plan for future growth.

Categorised in: Uncategorized
LINK: https://www.clearcom.com/News%20Stories/itv-broadcast-expansion/...
See more stories from clearcom

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

23/07/2026

Brian Jones Named NCTCs New CFO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/07/2026

Scripps Unites TV Operations Under Dean Littleton's Leadership

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

23/07/2026

2D House is First North American Rental Facility to Offer...

David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...

23/07/2026

Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program

Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026 Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...

22/07/2026

ESPN's AutoMic Technology Pays Off at Wimbledon; Baker Credits Team, AELTC for Successful Fortnight

Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...

22/07/2026

Australian Sports Technologies Network Reports Industry Growth of 16% in 2026

The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...

22/07/2026

Production Wins, Man!': Men in Blazers' Founder Roger Bennett on Winning the FIFA World Cup as a Digital Media Brand

From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...

22/07/2026

TMRW Sports Appoints Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football

TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...

22/07/2026

Stephen Arnold Music Creates Audio for FIFA World Cup Projection Mapping Display at Rockefeller Center

Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...

22/07/2026

Harmonic Donates $25,000 to Venezuela Earthquake Relief Through Global Empowerment Mission

Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...

22/07/2026

Telemundo Acquires Exclusive U.S. Spanish-Language Rights to UEFA Mens Club Competitions Beginning 2027/28

Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...

22/07/2026

The Rest Is Football Returns to Netflix for 2026/27 Premier League Season Through 2028 European Championship

The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...

22/07/2026

Sports Studio and TheSoul Group Announce YouTube and Social Distribution Partnership

Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...

22/07/2026

Daktronics Concludes 2026 High School Video Summit

Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...

22/07/2026

FOR-A America to Exhibit at MMCA 2026 with First U.S. HVS-Q12 Sale Announced

FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...

22/07/2026

New York Yankees Select Lumen Technologies for Stadium and Data Center Connectivity

The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...

22/07/2026

IBC 2026: Calrec To Exhibit IP Audio Ecosystem, Announce New Products

Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...

22/07/2026

Solid State Logic Appoints Algam EKO as Italian Distributor

Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...

22/07/2026

FloSports Launches Free Streaming Channel on Prime Video

FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...

22/07/2026

Savannah Bananas Deploys Calrec Audio Infrastructure for Banana Ball TV REMI Broadcasts

Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...

22/07/2026

SiriusXM and Audacy Announce Agreement To Add 42 Local Stations to SiriusXM

SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...

22/07/2026

Overtime, FOX One Partner on Social-First FIFA World Cup Series Race to Glory for the Creator Generation

The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...

22/07/2026

Green Bay Packers Escalate In-House Video Production With New Content Studio

At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...

22/07/2026

ERA II Vocal Codex from Eduardo Tarilonte

Library now available in Engine Player Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...

22/07/2026

Cloudvocals improved FlashTrack FT-15 DSP Microphone

All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...

22/07/2026

Electro-Harmonix launch the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2

The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...

22/07/2026

Clear-Com Delivers Integrated Communications for Fryderyk Awards Gala in Krakw

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......

22/07/2026

IAB Tech Lab Updates Podcast Technical Measurement Guidelines

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/07/2026

FCC Adopts Plan for C-Band Auction in July 2027

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/07/2026

LTN surpasses 3000 satellite-to-IP migrations as FCC vote...

Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...

22/07/2026

Chaos Releases V-Ray 7 Update 4 Connecting Real-Time Work...

Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...

22/07/2026

An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app

An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app Marc Levoy July 22, 2026 0 Comments At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...

22/07/2026

RTS Chooses Custom Consoles Desks and MediaWalls for Stud...

Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...

22/07/2026

Graham Media's WDIV Opens Satellite Newsroom/Coffee Shop

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/07/2026

FCC Approves License Transfer of WTVQ-DT to Scripps

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/07/2026

Spectrum Reach Expands Operations in N.Y.

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

22/07/2026

Miris spatial streaming platform adds support for glTF in...

Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...

22/07/2026

Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K

Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Brie Clayton July 21, 2026 0 Comments Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...

22/07/2026

AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back

AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026 0 Comments A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...

22/07/2026

From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Through Photos

From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...

22/07/2026

NVIDIA AI Supercomputer Comes Online at Naval Postgraduate School

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...

22/07/2026

Sky Documentaries announces The Salisbury Poisonings: A Spy Next Door

A poisoned spy, a secret war, and a small English city contaminated by a deadly chemical weapon. Available on Sky Documentaries from 4 AugustWednesday 22 July 2...

22/07/2026

Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement with Spotify, SiriusXM, Triton Digital, Acast, and Libysn

Audio at Parity: Comscore Launches Transcript-Level Targeting and Measurement wi...

22/07/2026

Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership

Arvato Systems and Lobster Enter into a Partnership and Combine the Integration Platform and Managed Services Flexible integration solutions for cloud, hybrid...