NEWS ANALYSIS
Broadcast TECH Jubilee Pageant: what went wrong? The BBC’s coverage over the event was heavily criticised, but was it justified? George Bevir reports
The BBC has been roundly criticised for its coverage of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, with the Thames Pageant and pop concert panned by sections of the press. The coverage of 1,000 boats on the Thames was described as “patchy” (Daily Telegraph) and “humiliat- ingly botched” (Daily Mail), while the broad- caster received nearly 2,500 complaints from viewers over the quality of the images of the flotilla and the presenting team. First, the scale of the event has to be taken
into consideration. Ben Weston, BBC execu- tive editor for the Queen’s Jubilee, described it as “the equivalent of three royal weddings in different locations, shot back to back. In terms of logistics and infrastructure, it really is three to four times the size of the royal wedding. So it’s a challenge by any yardstick.” Afterwards, Weston said: “Working on the
water means you are entirely dependent on RF and microwave communications, and the really apalling weather made everything a little more difficult.” It was a point picked up by one Broadcast reader, who referred to “poor RF links” during the Jubilee Pageant. “Somehow they could never manage both sound and vision from any one point 50m away in line of sight. It was painful to watch.” The BBC looked after the bulk of live cov-
erage of the Jubilee, leading the pooled broadcast of the Pageant. There were some 90 cameras covering the seven-mile route along the Thames, with kit and crew from 10 scanners supplied by Arena, Arqiva, CTV and NEP Visions, with SIS Live managing links and satellite connectivity. RF feeds from the barge were mixed with wireless feeds from nine other BBC-rigged boats. RF and fixed links up and down the river were sent to a central ingest point, and from there to the BBC’s technical hub at Canada Gate. Broadcast RF was present at all of the Jubi- lee events, providing coverage for the BBC, Sky, ITN and ITV. For the Pageant, the Dart- ford-based firm provided and engineered most of the shore-based wireless video links, while the on-board coverage from the boats was provided by SIS Live. Broadcast RF said
8 | Broadcast TECH | May/June 2012 Jubilee Pageant: broadcast was described as ‘humiliatingly botched’, but it scored an AI of 82
that while the event was slightly hampered by the weather, it did not affect the RF coverage. Broadcast RF technical project manager
Nick Fuller said: “The geography of the River Pageant was unique. I have worked in OBs for 30 years and I have never worked on an event as strung out as this. It’s impossible to cable cameras all along the river bank so a lot had to be RF cameras, some a long way from OBs. The weather didn’t really impact the RF viability – it might over 50 miles in torrential rain, but providing your equipment is water- proofed, it shouldn’t affect it.”
Co-ordinated coverage With a limited amount of spectrum for video links available, Broadcast RF worked with SIS and JFMG, the organisation contracted by Ofcom to manage programme-making and special events (PMSE) spectrum. “To the best of my knowledge, the plan we came up with worked perfectly,” said Fuller. One senior OB source, who asked not
to be named, said interference from other RF users, rather than the bad weather, had caused the problems. He said: “At the
‘The geography was unique. In 30 years, I’ve never worked on
an event as strung out’ Nick Fuller, Broadcast RF
beginning of the Pageant around the Batter- sea area, there was interference from the radar at Heathrow that would have appeared to viewers as blocky pictures and sound.” To guard against interference, cameras located on the main barge transmitted off more than one frequency, but there was not enough spectrum to do that for all camera sources. The BBC pointed to audience approval
ratings as vindication. Although these were below last year’s royal wedding, the live cov- erage of the Thames Pageant scored 82 on the broadcaster’s appreciation index (AI), while the concert received an AI of 85. A BBC spokesman said: “The Jubilee’s AI figure is important as some opinion-formers would have you believe it was the worst TV ever – but it’s really something to be proud of.”
www.broadcastnow.co.uk/techfacils
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