Page 31 - ITU Kaleidoscope 2016

ICTs for a Sustainable World

leadership, understanding and motivation are in place and
regularly re-enforced is an important part for ensuring continued
improvement.
0.206 0.196 The TV production world is under continued financial pressure.
This is exemplified by the way that sports rights continue to eat
into the commissioning budgets in the UK. Already 40% of the
total production spend in the UK is on sport programming and
Lord Puttnam in his report on “a Future for public service
television” [12] expects this to rise. Given these pressures it easy
for managers and producers to focus on the bottom line and ignore
the role of sustainability in production. It is therefore important to
exploit the cost saving relationship that sustainability can bring to
decision-making. For example as travel cost rise it will make more
sense to hire crews and equipment locally rather than to ship the
productions own to location but this will only work if unit
managers can have the tools to allow them to find the right gear
and hire good personnel before travelling. Another example of
virtuous synergies that the BBC has sought to exploit is the use of
bioethanol-powered fuel cells for powering remote cameras. Not
Figure 12: Comparison of the carbon footprint per viewer- only are these more sustainable than batteries or diesel generators
hour of DTT broadcast without and without an aerial but they are lighter, safer and silent!
amplifier and with on-line distribution. At the end of the day a typical hour of TV production produces
13.6 tonnes of CO 2 (fig 2, financial year 2015/16) whilst the
average UK home produces 4.5 tonnes per year (from gas and
5. CONCLUSIONS electricity).
5.1 Editorial
5.3 Distribution
As the global social, political and most importantly scientific
consensus is now firm that anthropogenic climate change is
happening, broadcasters are expected to increasingly cover this As we have seen a well-designed DTT network, with suitable
topic in their programme making and reporting, however there receiving equipment, serving large populations can be more
will still be editorial challenges to ensure impartiality and thus efficient than an IP distribution model for live services as shown
hard questions to be asked of all parties. It is also a topic that will in figure 13. In fact BBC R&D investigations reported in WHP
require creativity to ensure that audiences are informed, educated, 258 [12] indicate that even for catch up viewing, DTT, using a
entertained and engaged. Talented production teams should be PVR (Personal Video Recorder), can be 60% more efficient than
able cover the issues and explain the complexities through a range an iPlayer VOD alternative. This however cannot be the full story
of programme genres and formats. Although most broadcasters as one of the main advantages of the iPlayer is that you don’t have
will create long form TV and radio content to do this, they will to know what you want to watch before it is broadcast. Even with
also need to use social media so that their audiences can find and better Electronic Programme Guides (EPG) or sophisticated use of
share this content and “join the conversation”, as they say. Linear social media the PVR will not be programed to record all the
programming on its own will only meet its potential if these tools progammes the viewer may want to watch and could well end up
and platforms are used effectively. recording programmes that the owner never watches, so it won’t
surprise you learn that many organisations, including the BBC, are
looking at PVRs that have a capability to learn their owners
5.2 Production preferences and therefore predict which programmes they might
record in order to close this gap. There are also some interesting
As well as the editorial complexity there are three further factors options for hybrid platforms combining the best of broadcast and
that will enable increasingly suitable production. IP distribution. This could mean that during peak times services
are delivered by broadcast but then as audiences drop, overnight
Teams wish to make the best programme possible for audiences for example, distribution could switch to online at the point where
and in order to obtain good ratings or audience approval, to be re- that platform becomes more efficient.
commissioned or to be in the running for an award. They will
invariably want to use the approach that they consider best on These approaches are still only research projects and for such
screen over the one that is more sustainable. This means that complex systems to be widely adopted a combination of technical
sustainable technology and practices have to be credible. For standards and regulatory frameworks will probably need to be in
example as the colour temperature of LED and other low power place. Although the BBC and its service providers are working to
techniques are now becoming widely acceptable to lighting improve the efficiency of the distribution chain we have
directors, they are being widely deployed, not only for their power demonstrated how important the consumption of the audiences’
efficiency, but they also have the added advantage of being lighter own equipment in the home is and there are considerable pressures
and safer. On location catering units now routinely issue bottles or in this area. Efforts are being made to produce more efficient
mugs for crew members for reuse and this reduces waste, receivers and the IEEE’s de facto standard for green computing
empowers crew members and creates a branding opportunity for covers Televisions in IEEE 1680.3 and IEEE 1680.6 [13] for the
production mementos… environmental assessment of complex set top boxes.
As is common across many areas of sustainability production team This is all the more important when we realize that home screens
behavior is key, especially so with an undertaking which is so over the last 10 years have been getting larger and larger, thus
reliant on the activity of a large number of people, many of whom
are freelance or contracted. Making sure that sustainable values,

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