Lemming Television (LTV) Is A Television Production Company: Innovation And Project Management Report, NUI, Ireland

Lemming Television (LTV) is a television production company that specializes in making outside broadcast (OB) ‘specials’ for a variety of television networks. It was recently commissioned to make a series of ‘summer road show’ programs which would be shot at locations around Europe during the spring and early summer and broadcast by the customer (a satellite broadcasting network) during the summer. The programs would involve circus acts, displays, events, and computer-graphic displays to entertain the crowds and popular entertainment acts and interviews which would be interspersed with contestant games. Managing the preparation for the series was the responsibility of the show’s producer, Flo Brown. Flo, who had recently graduated with distinction from her MBA course, knew that she would need to keep a tight grip on the arrangements for the roadshow series. The shooting would start at the end of May and the final show would be recorded at the end of July. The shows would be broadcast between early July and late August, so any delay either in recording the material or in editing the programs would cause considerable complications.

The company had known that it would be commissioned to make the programs since December, but Flo had only been allocated the job in early February! Her first act was to list the various jobs which would have to be done before shooting could start. She then discussed each job with the part of the company which would carry it out, to try to understand what decisions would need to be made before they could start on their jobs. The jobs which needed to be done before the start of the shooting are listed below together with some details.

The producer’s responsibilities (as well as managing the whole project) included:

• Scheduling the venues: would take about two weeks to finalize and could be started straight away.
• Defining the design concept: would need discussions with the chief designer and would take about four weeks of considering alternative designs before finalizing the concept, but could be started straight away.
• Specifying computer-graphic displays: again in consultation with the chief designer, it would take about a week but could not be started until all the detailed planning had been finalized.