TVU One’s Starlink Synergy ensures funeral of Queen Elizabeth II stays on air for France Télévisions

TVU Networks’ remote production solution alongside SpaceX’s collaboration with the company to integrate its Starlink into TVU One meant France Télévisions was able to broadcast Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral without interruptions.

Large crowds often mean saturation of cellular networks, which can lead to dropped calls and unusable live shots, as well as a battle for bandwidth between broadcasters. This issue was avoided during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral coverage for France Télévisions, with the combination of TVU Networks and Starlink technologies.

The ability of TVU One to aggregate multiple separate signals into a single redundant stream frees users the instability of mobile networks, the main cause of signal degradation in many live news situations.

The combined technologies were tested and validated in the extreme transmission conditions in Ukraine and Corsica, before being certified by the technical teams of France Télévisions.

“We must offer news production teams and reporters technological solutions to cover every major event regardless of constraints,” said Skander Ben Attia, director of engineering at France Télévisions. “The flexibility and ease of use of the TVU Networks solutions met these conditions 200%.”

For France Télévisions, failure of the network during the funeral was not an option. The media coverage of the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the security associated with the event ruled out the use of live traditional vans and satellite trucks, while the large crowds in attendance would place a lot of strain on already-crowded mobile networks.

Through its partner Magic Hour, TVU Networks provided transmission packs allowing the routing of signals via Starlink as well as reception servers, to increase the volume of traffic to the France Télévisions news control room on the day of the funeral.

Thanks to this configuration, France Télévisions was able to run a continuous live broadcast, control its production costs, and cover the event from all editorially relevant locations.

“After very conclusive trials in Ukraine and Corsica, we decided to deploy this TVU Networks-Starlink configuration on a large scale,” commented Romuald Rat, news production director for France Télévisions. “TVU Networks-Starlink configuration has brought us to the crossroads of technology and history, creating the certainty of being able to serve our audience without fail and focus on the storytelling. It is impossible not to be very proud of what we accomplished.”

Added Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks: “For 17 years, TVU Networks solutions have made every live shot a success. We must provide solutions at all levels. Success is about more than delivering a plan from point A to point B. It’s about saving time, money, resources and stress so that our partners have better control over their content. Making every live shot a success is firmly in the DNA of TVU Networks.”