ITV Web Based Production Resource
ITV Web Based Production Resource
ITV Web Based Production Resource
ITV Web Based Production Resource

ITV

Web Based Production Resource

ITV is the biggest commercial television network in the UK. The Network is made up of fifteen different regional licence.

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Client Profile

ITV is the biggest commercial television network in the UK. The Network is made up of fifteen different regional licences, which provide television to viewers across the UK. Eleven of the licences are held directly by ITV Plc, which was formed in 2004 following the merger of Carlton and Granada TV. With the remaining four licenses, covering Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, held by SMG, UTV and Channel Television respectively.

The Problem

With the amalgamation of Carlton and Granada TV, the new business was faced with major challenges in creating new programmes, as well as re-organising the production department.

ITV realised that there was a huge amount of information and knowledge held across the two organisations that needed to be captured and shared in the most cost effective and impactful manner. The information share would be essential to creating a collaborative and productive environment that maintained the companies best practice approaches and ensured that the resources and talent were fully utilised.

All of this knowledge would need to be captured and compiled before any re-organisation of the two companies could take place. A way to collate and publish the information to the large number of production staff would need to be devised and a simple way to update the information created.

The Solution

Utilising Microsoft SharePoint as the framework, BlackLight Software developed ShowStarter, a dedicated web-based Portal where all the information is housed.

Any member of the production staff is able to log onto ShowStarter and access the stored information from an internal or external location, quickly and easily obtaining vital information needed for the production process.

The Portal has been structured into eight separate sections:-

  • Location information: covering costs, size, availability and corresponding images
  • Facilities: detailing studios through to Winnebago’s, as well as shared calendars and activities
  • Talent Identification: including actors, directors, cameraman and stunt doubles
  • Stills, Footage and Music: containing still shots, digital footage and music to enhance the production
  • Internal ITV departments and contacts: for every question imaginable
  • Applications: providing access to ITV internal applications, which requires a further level of security to access
  • Tools of the Trade: links to internal and external sites containing information as varied as Health & Safety information through to Commissioning & Production guides and catering suppliers
  • Research: a direct link to the Research department for up to the minute information

The main page of the Portal also provides a number of other key features; a Chat Forum that is accessible to all users but is also customisable for individual production units as required, a newsfeed which can be updated by senior production staff to broadcast information such as vacancies or upcoming internal events and a Dashboard showing the programmes currently in production and the stage of development.

The Benefits

ITV have utilised ShowStarter successfully on hundreds of productions since its inception.

The application is now seen as the main production portal within the organisation, with further development planned to automatically link the system to a number of in-house applications through workflows. This will enable the production process to be simplified once the financial approval has been given.

ITV’s Head of Production Software stated, “We’ve had really positive comments from those that matter, the business and production reps, they not only love the functionality but have commented on how fabulous and refreshing the User Interface is...”