London Live moves broadcast operation to ABS Broadcast

London Live, a local television station under the OFCOM Local-DTPS Licence in the UK, has moved its entire broadcast operation to ABS Broadcast despite COVID-19 challenges

The project teams on both sides were faced with unprecedented challenges caused by the COVID-19 lockdown, which presented a new dimension to the migration process.

London Live is distributed on multiple platforms, including Freeview channel 8, Sky channel 117 and Virgin channel 159. The technical reconfiguration was challenging, given that engineering teams were forced to self-isolate remotely.

Tim Kirkman, managing director at London Live, said: “Due to contractual and commercial reasons, we were faced with a move date that fell right in the middle of the lockdown. Fortunately, with the help of our project team at Support Partners, the efforts of the team at ABS Broadcast and the London Live team, we were able to meet the deadline during a very difficult time. This was achieved without comprising the lockdown restrictions or on-air quality our viewers value.”

Sass Jahani, managing director at ABS Broadcast, added: “With more than 200 channel migrations under our belt, we thought we had encountered every problem possible. We were certainly presented with a new set of challenges with COVID-19. I am grateful for the outstanding work by everyone involved in delivering this project on time.”

London Live successfully moved their playout operation and broadcast management software to ABS Broadcast, and their commercials sales software to Digitex at the same time.