The team at ITV daytime have recently invested in a range of ultra-low-emission vehicles to reduce their emissions when reporting away from the studio. ITV’s daytime shows, including This Morning and Good Morning Britain, regularly broadcast from outside of the studio and around the UK. Historically they used traditional satellite vans or trucks to broadcast live on location, driving on average 40,000 miles a year.
Enter the new Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV). Each has a 2 litre petrol engine, 2 electric motors and a battery on-board. They can drive solely on electrical energy for over 30 miles, or assist the petrol engine and regenerate power. As these cars are ultra low-emission, they are also Congestion Charge-free in London.
The Daytime team say that the transmission technology is equally impressive – the vehicles are IP-based and equipped with an auto-pointing satellite dish. Instead of beaming pictures out via satellite they gather or ‘bond’ all available bandwidth and send pictures back to the studio via the internet. This uses less energy and also provides significant cost-savings.