It takes a village to cover Royal news

How many staff does it take to provide rolling coverage of news events in London?

A lot.

Multiple locations, live crosses, TV, online, radio, publishing…. Australian broadcasters are throwing a lot of resources to cover the event.

Television in particular, requires a lot of support and technical staff to make it all present smoothly on screen.

Speaking at Nine Upfronts this week, Amelia Adams gave a sense of what goes on behind the scenes.

“We have up to 100 staff flown in from around Australia, as well as those of us who are already based overseas,” she said. “We have our hosts, our correspondents, producers, camera crews, hair and makeup, online publishing digital radio. We’ve set up somewhat of a command centre in the hotel, where we’re staying. I think I’ve been uniquely positioned as I transition from News to 60 Minutes, pop across to different planning sessions, logistical meetings and production meetings and really witness our teams working together to churn out some pretty extraordinary coverage- if I do say so objectively, 24 hours a day!

“We’re about halfway through now. So we’ve been going for five days, five more days into the funeral. It’s certainly the biggest logistical operation I’ve been involved in for a news story in the past 20 years and it does make you quite proud to see the way our teams are working. Hopefully there’ll be a few pints for everyone at the end of it all.”

Meanwhile News Corp, is questioning why ABC has 27 staff on the ground.

ABC does have fewer than 30 but not all there all the time, and some covering other European news for multiple platforms.

“The ABC has two teams in the UK covering the funeral and events leading up to it, to service the News platforms and ABC Radio. Coverage plans are dynamic and not all our people are working across the whole period,” ABC said in a statement.

“ABC Radio has three presenters and three production people filing stories and providing live updates for the entire network, including the 44 local daily breakfast shows.

“ABC News has a team of around 12 journalists and nine production people, producing live and packaged content for our digital, radio, TV and on-demand programs and channels across 24 hours a day. These include continuous news channels the ABC News website, ABC NEWS Channel and News Radio, and programs including AM, PM, The World Today, the 7pm News and News Breakfast. 

“Two other journalists were coincidentally already in Europe and are adding to the coverage, including former Chief Foreign Correspondent Phil Williams. The overseas-based correspondents are also covering other stories, including the war in Ukraine. Editorial and production people have travelled from overseas bureaus and Australia.”