This has happened 3 times in the last year. The broadcasters themselves don't form part of JTAC so it doesn't affect them from a government level, that being said I'm sure they have their own individual contingency arrangements to secure their staff and assets from the threat of terrorism.
The UK news organisations have a buy-out deal for their helicopters - that means they sign a contract (which is no doubt tendered and procured) and this buy out guarantees so many hours per year of use, and then deploy on merit within this quota. To avoid multiple helicopters buzzing around the same location there are agreements to share live pictures from helicopters (though with one broadcaster usually being the senior partner in control of what is covered and when)
It's much more cost-effective than 'by the hour' purchase of helicopter time, and guarantees availability.
(Which also means the 'How much is it costing the BBC to...' questions get very boring very quickly)
This might interest some. It's some raw helicopter footage complete with in flight comms audio from today's incident.
Skip along to 10.55 mins in and you can hear the pilot talking to MCR (so clearly a BBC helicopter arrangement) about returning to base to be replaced by a pooled helicopter.
What's interesting is hearing the pilot liasing on whether to pull away or wait for the other news helicopter to arrive. The pilot was also aware if the chopper cam was being used on air.
Last edited by Worzel on 16 September 2017 1:39am - 3 times in total
Im sure someone on here knows the answer. Any reason why the choppers constantly are in motion when shooting live? Noise? Flight restrictions or something? Just curious.
