Behind the scenes...

So what does it mean to have one of the BBC biggest outside broadcasts come live from a nature reserve into the homes of over 4million viewers a night for three weeks? 

Pensthorpe‘s staff car park becomes the ‘Home of BBC Springwatch‘ and sees a total transformation as first porta cabin role in then marquees go up.  Over the course of only a few days all the infrastructure is in place for this popular series which has people on site 24 hours a day seven days a week collecting footage from the multitude of cameras set up around the 500acre estate in order to bring you footage of species never covered on the series before and behaviour never caught on camera.

There‘s lots going on behind the scenes here at Pensthorpe to bring you live footage of wildlife and nature for BBC Springwatch 2009. Here are some of the amazing facts which makes BBC Springwatch operate happen from here...
• Two generators provide continuous power for the 23 days of live television

• 12 temporary phone lines have been installed along with four wired broadband services and fifteen satellite based broadband services.

• 36 television transmissions are planned over 12 days including web tx‘s and ‘red-button‘ programmes plus inserts for nations and regions and trails.

· There are radio contributions for all parts of the United Kingdom over a three week period.

· There will be two further outside broadcasts, one in Wales, and one in Essex, feeding programme material live into Pensthorpe, both connected by a second satellite.

· 5 web streams generate and transmit to the Springwatch website via a third satellite 24 hrs a day for 23 days

· The BBC have installed a total fibre core length of 26 kilometers, 7 kilometers of power cable, 2 kilometers of audio cable, 45 microphones on site, 12 radio mic receivers and 45 cameras on site.

· Each satellite link involves a signal path length of 44,600 miles - 22,300 up and 22,300 down

• 6,580 sq ft of temporary office space has been erected to accommodate offices and technical areas with on-site recording for 20 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 3½ weeks.

So as you can see there‘s more to Springwatch than meets the eye.

To watch a short video made from behind the scenes click here