Broadcast Centre hothouse blooms for UKTV Style Gardens playout

UKTV’s newest channel, UKTV Style Gardens, is the first UKTV channel to be played out from Broadcast Centre – one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in Europe.
BBC Broadcast coordinated playout to media planning to on-air promotion for the new channel in record time said Catriona Tate, UKTV Business Director at BBC Broadcast.
Tate said: “This is a great example of how clients can use our range of services and receive a high quality, time efficient service. BBC Broadcast brings together a unique range of creative, technical and editorial expertise which makes it possible for a complex channel to launch in record time."
All the automation necessary to playout the channel was installed in Broadcast Centre - the largest purpose built facility of its kind in Europe, if not the world. The process only took seven weeks and occurred while BBC Broadcast was migrating other channels from BBC’s Television Centre (TVC). Previously, at TVC, this process would take three to four months.
Programmes were also sourced, edited for compliance with a commercial channel, digitised and ingested into Broadcast Centre’s central digital store. The usual schedule for this process is 11 weeks, but BBC Broadcast was able to complete the process in a record seven weeks.
BBC Broadcast worked with UKTV to develop launch trails and launch continuity plus a series of navigational menus to highlight the different programming zones on UKTV Style Gardens.
Creative Director at BBC Broadcast Alison King said: “UKTV Style Gardens aims to inspire viewers to create their dream garden and the trails demonstrate how the channel can ’turn your imagination into gardening inspiration’. A graceful sequence, beautifully shot on film, illustrates how everyday objects can be inspiring - with a man’s afro turning into a topiary bush and a woman’s sparkling earring turning into a beautiful vine of red tomatoes, being amongst the transformations.”
UKTV Style Gardens is the first UKTV channel to be played out from Broadcast Centre. BBC Broadcast is currently migrating the other nine UKTV channels from TVC in West London to its Broadcast Centre. This will be the last phase in the largest migration project in broadcast history and follows the successful migration of BBC ONE and BBC TWO which was completed earlier this year.
BBC Broadcast, www.bbcbroadcast.com
(SP)