LIVE on board HMS Illustrious

Sky News were live on board HMS Illustrious earlier with Defence Corresp James Forlong, but the captain had to slow the ship down to 18 Knots to allow for the uplink dish to follow the path of the satellite. BTW: Kate Adie thought this was her BIG exclusive broadcasting fro HMS Illustrious, until she found out that ITN & Sky were also there. Infact, the uplink equipment is BBC's.

Jeremy Thompson thanked the captain at the end of the link-up for slowing the ship down!

BTW: In 1998, the last time reporters were on board a warship in the gulf for a long period (HMS Invinsible I think), James Matthews was Sky's man there. Once at the end of a package we got: 'James Matthews Sky News, on board HMS Invinsible. James Mattews, Sky News for CBS News on board HMS Invinsible' [2 SIGNOFFS]

Another point. Do the BBC not have anyone with with Northern Alliance a few miles from Kabul. Sky's Geoff Meade was the first about 2 weeks ago, a real exclusive.

(Edited by SkyNews at 10:42 pm on Oct. 4, 2001)

You'll find that at a time of 'war' there are a lot of pool feeds ... I remember taking feeds during the Gulf when correspondents would file for a whole series of outlets .. including words like Kate Adie for the British Television News Pool in XXXXX. Certainly BBC correspondents would file for ABC and CBC etc.
You'll find that ITN, BBC and Sky will automatically pool resources like sats etc to enable everyone to feed.
As to correspondents with the Afghans - they had a producer inside at the time, Jackie Rowland the BBC's correspondent has also been with them from almost Day One of the crisis .. and what's more her lives are in vision most of the time whereas I think the Sky ones are mostly on the phone with only quality tape feeds. John Simpson also made it across the border.

John Simpson made it across the border for 1 day . . . dressed as a woman!

Sky News have been doing phonos only with Geoff Meade. Although Michelle Clifford in Tajikistan (I think it is) that is on the Northern Border with Afghanistan has a sat video phone (although it isn't actually a phone!) & it appears to be much better quality than any of the other stations are using. It's more in sync & clearer footage.

The British Armed Forces used a pool system in Kosovo, which worked in the press but collapsed on TV because of Jermemy Thompson & the rest of the Sky team effectively beating the army into Kosovo (nearly!)

Sky had the problem that Meade was one of the very first journalists into Afghanistan - before the BBC and ITN - and therefore Sky didn't have time to get much equipment out to him, also the helicopters haven't been able to get across the border to carry journalists because of the fact that the weather isn't too good. Clifford is in one of the surrounding countries, not sure which one, and has a videophone. They'll get in-vision pretty soon, as soon as the helicopter flights start running normally they'll probably be ok. It's odd though, Meade does have in-vision ability, because he's doing all of his reports in high quality - all of which have been used by Fox News - and so they can film in good quality, obviously they just can't go live.

I have to say the BBC had someone in Afghanistan BEFORE the attacks and she was on air very soon after they had taken place - I'm afraid I can't remember her name as she's a producer. The BBC now has a team of around 10 people with the Northern Alliance - you may have seen some reports from Caroline Wyatt who is there with others. The difference with John Simpson is that he got into Taliban held Afghanistan - rather than rebel held.
I would imagine that Geoff Meade is using some form of TOKO technology which allows him to file reports but not do lives. It takes about a minute to send a second and it has that slightly grainy look. It uses a normal sat phone to file. There's an article in Broadcast about how the broadcasters are working to sort out a pool if and when anything happens. Reuters seem to be the only people who have a crew in Kabul itself.

CNN were the only network with a correspondent inside Afghanistan at the time of the attacks, I think Kate Clarke - Beeb's Afghanistan correspondent - was sent out of the country. CNN later provided live coverage of explosions in Kabul, via video phone. They went a bit OTT though, as the rather massive graphics suggest...

http://www.tvhome.f2s.com/ikonboard/upload/cnnexc.jpg

Fact remains though, when it comes to something happening there and then CNN simply cannot be beaten. They have such a talent for breaking news and live events that being ahead of them is something to be very proud of. Sky managed it in Kosovo, coverage which gained a great deal of respect from Atlanta, I can tell you.