ITV is the biggest commercial television network in the UK; the Network is made up of fifteen regions, providing television to viewers across the UK. Eleven of the licences held by ITV are in England and Wales, which was formed in 2004 following the merger of Carlton and Granada TV.
The Problem
With the amalgamation of Granada TV and Carlton, the new business was faced with major challenges in creating new programmes, as well as re-organising the production department.
Realising that there was a huge amount of information & knowledge held across the organisation, this was recognised as essential to ensure that the company's best practices, resources and talent were fully utilised, cost-effectively to have maximum impact, in a collaborative environment.
This information had to be captured & compiled before any re-organisation could take place; then a method was needed to collate and publish the detail to a large number of production staff within the organisation and have a simple method of continual updating.
The Solution
Utilising Microsoft SharePoint as the framework, BlackLight produced Show Starter, which allows any production staff (internal and external) to log on to a designated Portal, which currently has eight links, which are:
- Location information; costs, size, availability & images held.
- Facilities; studios through to Winnebago’s, along with shared calendars and activities.
- Talent Identification; for Actors, Directors, Cameraman or Stunt Doubles & more.
- Still shots, digital footage and music to enhance the production.
- Internal ITV departments and contacts for every question imaginable.
- ITV internal applications (which require further security to access).
- Tools of the Trade; links to internal & external sites containing information as varied as Governmental contacts and Health & Safety, through to Commissioning & Production guides and Catering suppliers.
- A direct link to the Research department.
This main page also provides a Chat Forum, which can be seen by all who log on, this is also customisable for individual production units if required, a news feed which can be updated by senior production staff to broadcast; opportunities, vacancies or upcoming internal events and a Dashboard showing what programmes are currently in production and at what stage they are at.
The Benefits
ITV have utilised Show Starter successfully on hundreds of productions since its inception, the application is now seen as the main Production Portal within the organisation and we have been requested to automatically link the system to a number of in-house applications through workflow, allowing for the process to be simplified once a product has been given financial approval for go ahead.
ITV’s Head of Production Software provided the following feedback;
“We’ve had really positive comments from those that matter, i.e. business/production reps. They not only love the functionality but have commented on how fabulous and refreshing the User Interface is...”
Blacklight Software