SIS Live provided outside broadcast faciities for live coverage of the funeral procession of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

SIS Live provided much of the comprehensive broadcasting infrastructure to capture the ceremonial funeral, with 700 military personnel from all three forces lining the route.

SIS Live’s OB and satellite uplink trucks were stationed at key points in central London and along the route from Westminster to St Paul’s. SIS Live provided production facilities via OB 7, located 50 miles away at its Milton Keynes headquarters.

The offices in Milton Keynes are home to one of SIS Live’s satellite teleports and 24 hour MCR, where 14 HD feeds were brought in either via satellite or fibre for production in OB 7. The programme output from OB 7 was then transmitted to two different satellites and distributed to BT Tower to be watched by audiences across the globe.

SIS Live also provided all of the comms and satellite link facilities for the production connecting five different sites around London and transmitting to broadcasters worldwide.

Using the teleport and fibre infrastructure allowed all international production facilities to be based away from London, where space was at a premium and security a major concern. The success of this approach has led SIS Live to put in a permanent fibre infrastructure in their Milton Keynes site, to allow one of their large OB trucks to park up with connectivity to their teleport and national fibre infrastructure, at any time and at short notice.

In 2008 SIS LIVE acquired the BBC’s Resources Unit.


Most information from:- "Televisual".

Trouble was Dimbleby did talk over some of the music which his Father would never have done. I think faders went out with ppms,everything sounds as if it is done 'on auto' with the operators just gazing at those silly little LEDs!