Production bosses at the UK’s biggest broadcasters have lifted the lid on the challenges of organising their election night programming within six weeks. Broadcasters expecting an October election had to work around an unexpectedly early date, some technical mishaps and, in the case of Channel 4, starting the campaign without a studio in place. Chairing an event at ITN on Thursday, Jon Roberts, its director of technology, production and innovation, said he would “argue with anybody that election programmes are the hardest thing to put together.
I think they’re the most extraordinary achievement in television. “You can name any massive high-profile event and I’m not sure any come with the same combination of factors — the amount of outside sources, the graphics and results, the workflow which underpins the whole show. “Normally, we’re doing something super ambitious in the studio at the same time.
We’re building this whilst doing the campaign [coverage]. We’re all doing it, and we’re all aware that there’s going to be reviews the next morning and every decision that we make as part of that. “And just the general predictability of all of that through the night — there’s so much content on election night, you could run the same programme 30 times and make 30 different programmes based on thousands of decisions that are happening in those control rooms.
” Perhaps the most dramatic subject of these pressures was Channel 4 , which Roberts explained ha.