Cliff Richard High Court Case

There are really strict rules over when and where you can fly a drone, most notably (from memory) that in a public place you have to inform people on the ground that there is a drone in the area, and you'd need permission to fly over private property, both of which make drones unsuitable for live newsgathering purposes.

That, and they have a flight time measured in minutes, and for commercial use (which the BBC would fall under) you need a CAA qualified pilot, it's not like you can just send a reporter out and get them to grab a couple of shots and be done with it.

Arena’s pilots have very good relations with air traffic agencies in the UK, ( which is why you often see shots taken over LHR and LGW etc) There is no way those shots could be obtained by drones. (I make no comment about the editorial merit of such shots)

How is the helicopter downlinked and shared with ITN? I know outside London I’ve heard the need of a satellite truck being needed to downlink and then uplink the footage. But with it being in London could ITN and the BBC downlink it themselves or does the BBC do and and provide a circuit to ITN? In the US I’ve seen helicopter footage shares in recent times transmitted to other stations by a LiveU or Dejero connected to the public internet and received at the other station like they would any other CNG shot.

Yes it's just received on the ground and sent to the other company. There are receive sites in London for it. The BBC, ITN and Sky have circuits between them and of course they all have circuits to/from the BT Tower


So I assume TV stations in the US aren't as connected as ours? Does your average station have any ad hoc circuits in and out which can be used to connect to any other station?

Not typically unless there’s a sharing agreement. Some stations that share footage from helicopters or general news events that don’t warrant a reporter will fiber, satellite or microwave the content over. However with the advent of devices like LiveU servers and stations usually having high speed Internet access some are going that route.

There are some services such as The Switch which provide fiber circuits amongst hundreds of clients can provide temporary connections within the city depending on whether the station is connected.

Also the telephone companies don’t do switching anymore like the BT Tower does.

Yep - in my experience most US TV operations have connectivity that can land you - eventually - on a fibre operator like The Switch. Most stations have the ability to either fibre or satellite contribute to their affiliate network news operation AIUI, though 'public internet' IP connectivity has been used for pre-recorded material for a long time now, and no doubt will increasingly be used for live feeds.

It's not usually that difficult to get a local US station newsroom camera fed back to the UK if you need to interview someone in the US.

Think the BBC might have already changed policy - reporting of a political story where a person is named in the Times and on other news websites was covered only by saying the man in question on the radio.

Just to point out that the "BBC helicopter" is not just used for news, it is used at weekends to work on events such as the London Marathon.
Using a drone on that is not practical due to the limited time they can stay airborne and the fact you have to have the pilot within close range - and all the other issues about being unable to fly over the public.

Arena's twitter feed today suggests both the helicopters, the 'BBC' and 'Sky' ones were up this morning for the BBC Marathon coverage

That doesn't surprise me, it is sensible to rent out your helicopter on a weekend when it is unlikely to be required for news. We have often rigged one extra helicopter at Arena and used the two permanently rigged ones for major events and for pool coverage.
(Although I have never understood why news doesn't happen at weekends!)