Zoom, productivity & a regional BBC TV newsroom. A thread…
Sometimes you need to interview people outside your physical patch - experts, politicians etc. In pre-zoom era you would start by hoping this person was in London. In that case they could possibly go to the Millbank studio.
You would ascertain their availability then check that Millbank had matching availability & someone who could get them in front of the camera. On busy days this wouldn’t always be possible.
If Millbank could accommodate you would still need to book a line (charge code required) & make technical arrangements at your end - you might need the broadcast gallery & a director. Might also need to sort a taxi to get the guest to Millbank.
If the guest was not in London it was trickier still. Perhaps they might know the location of the nearest down-the-line camera & who to talk to. If not, you would have to work that out. Some radio stations have a camera, some don’t . No central list of who to contact.
Once you worked out where your guest was going you were to a large extent relying on the goodwill of that other newsroom who were not so familiar with this process as Millbank. Maybe you would need to book a meet & greet (charge code required). Line bookings & taxis also needed.
Realistically all of this was going to occupy at least half a day for an experienced producer & it wasn’t guaranteed to end in success.
Now: ‘Can you do a Zoom? What time? We’ll send you a link.’ You can record it all via your phone, though for convenience I usually do it via our technical hub so it’s immediately available for editing. So what took half a day can now be realistically sorted in 10 minutes.
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