News is where I've spent a lot of my Television career. Working at the BBC in the 80's the biggest story I was involved with must have been the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference. The bomb went off at 3am, and I was manning the Central Technical Area at BBC Lime Grove preparing for that morning's Breakfast Time...didn't stop for 12 hours after that!
Working for a local ITV News station throws up stories big and small, and these days the journalistic expectations, technical standards and "in-yer-face" pressures are no different than in the National and International News organisations. Working at ITV Central South I was involved with many "firsts". We were the first UK local News company to use a fully-automated Betacart transmission system back in 1989, together with robotic Studio cameras. We were the first ITV News company to have our own dedicated SNG Uplink vehicle, and one of the first companies to adopt digital Video server technology for ingest, editing and transmission. I have worked with all the latest technologies, and have had training with many of the leading manufacturers, including Sony, Quantel, Avid and Thomson.
Since 2006 I have worked regularly as a Technical Director for Sky News HD, with the responsibility to "rack" up to 12 cameras in the Studio, bring in multiple feeds from around the globe and sort out first line technical and IT issues for the award-winning 24 hour News service.
So what can I offer your News Operation?