Five years on from the first UK lockdown, we take a look how KMTV's local TV operation stayed on air. From reporters setting up studios in their gardens to opening up to the world of video calls, Bartholomew Hall takes a look back KMTV's pandemic coverage.
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00:00During the pandemic, nearly all of us increased the amount of time we found ourselves in front of a screen.
00:06Here at KMTV, making sure the screens stayed on when everyone was forced to go home was vital.
00:12I think like everybody, we were trying to react to what the government was saying,
00:20but we very quickly adapted and ended up having a remote gallery,
00:25and we ended up winning awards for our innovation.
00:29Thanks to some technical handiwork, the KMTV channel stayed on air with the usual gallery left empty.
00:35Reporters, interviewees and presenters all able to continue broadcasting from the safety of their homes.
00:45Hello and welcome to Kentonite, live on KMTV on Monday 23rd March.
00:51I'm Louisa Britton, as you might have noticed, I'm not in the KMTV studios, I'm at home.
00:56We said goodbye in the office and we just didn't really know when we were next going to see each other.
01:00And yeah, and we went completely remotely for the foreseeable.
01:04I remember just hoping that my neighbours wouldn't pop their heads over the hedge,
01:09or that my dog wasn't going to get interrupted with the broadcast as well, because she was in the garden.
01:13I didn't realise until afterwards that she was just sat there looking at me.
01:17But first this evening, we're being warned to be extra vigilant,
01:20as criminals in Kent are using the coronavirus crisis to scam people out of hundreds of pounds.
01:26As lockdown went on, viewing figures showed adults spent an average of 45 hours a week watching TV and online video content,
01:33demonstrating just how vital a role public service broadcasters played in keeping people informed.
01:39Social distancing is something you will have heard a lot recently.
01:44A really difficult time for everyone to find ways of creating content and educating people about all of those ongoing changes
01:54and answering those questions, those really burning questions that people had.
01:59And to do that creatively was quite exciting, really.
02:03And, you know, there's no excuse for not putting content out and putting good quality content out.
02:08You can still do that remotely. You can use those resources at your disposal.
02:13It's a lot more egalitarian now.
02:16With almost every school, university or office turning to video calls to host their meetings and lessons,
02:22talking heads like these became a lot more popular on TV too,
02:26with technology quickly developing to allow contributors to log on from their own devices,
02:31in the comfort of their own home.
02:34I think you're on mute.
02:36Ten years ago, when we first were setting up KMTV,
02:40trying to get a video call system into our gallery was tens of thousands of pounds.
02:46Now it's available to us within seconds.
02:49To this day, our viewing figures around that first lockdown,
02:53certainly in that first week of the lockdown, are the highest viewing figures that we've ever had.
02:58I think that re-engaged the public as well,
03:01with them understanding how important it is to have free-to-air content for them to access.
03:07Five years later, that resilience has shaped the way we continue to communicate as a channel,
03:12keeping Kent's stories alive however they're told.
03:15Bartholomew Hall for KMTV.