大象传媒

Monday morning, 9 o’clock. The master copy of the latest edition of Digital Nation, 大象传媒 iPlayer’s showcase of the best of British local TV stories, is uploading to 大象传媒’s server – and my first job of the working week is done.

The stories from Digital Nation are at once unique and universal, and they unite people across communities and generations.

Mark O鈥橞rien

It may be odd that the final step of an episode is my first task of the week, but it takes over two and a half weeks to make one edition of Digital Nation. I’m the producer on the final tranche of episodes – my work begins on a Thursday afternoon when I sit down in front of an edit timeline with our production assistant Greg to log all the clips that local TV stations the length and breadth of the UK have sent us.

We don’t prescribe what tone or genre the clips sent to us should be, other than for the occasional themed seasonal edition. We only ask that each of the UK’s 21 stations send us one of their most interesting, compelling, best-made features from that week’s programming. Therefore it’s always a surprise what we find.

There are always stories about great personal feats, whether it’s the , or the prodigious pair of Norwich and are now being sought after by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s production company. There are the token animal stories, the mainstay of local broadcasting since the brass and strings theme tune of Nationwide first played out on 大象传媒 1 – like that poor who had to go under the knife after he stumbled into the path of his unsuspecting owner’s chair leg, crushing his shell. There are the beautiful features about iconic local landmarks, like and London’s Fulham Palace. And of course once in a while we end up with two stories about walking football sent to us in the same week!

Once Greg and I have chosen our top stories, we discuss them with Angi and Tim, the series producers in Brighton and Nottingham, and their respective teams who have overseen Digital Nation since . I write the script with the excellent Kerry Maule, the presenter of Made in Leeds’ nightly show The Lowdown whose voice you’ll hear on the latest editions of the programme, and whose Welsh roots ensure that pronouncing the places and people in the clips from Bay TV Swansea and Made in Cardiff never poses a problem. Then we take our rough cut to Audrey Green Oakes, the 大象传媒’s executive producer, who guides me and our editor Scott as we get to work on the assembly edit.

The result is 24 minutes of television that charts a course up and down the UK, that blends light and shade, tears and laughter, and that shares stories that truly mean something to viewers.

When you watch the and see the headlines about Brexit, the village politics of Westminster, and the latest episode from Donald Trump’s White House, the faces you see are infamous but ultimately distant.

But when you watch Digital Nation and meet the earning the recognition of the French government for their valour in the Second World War, or see the reporting for duty in Oxfordshire, or hear what motivates new runners to take part in the for the first time, you see the stories from your very own neighbourhood, meeting people whose lives could be playing out behind the front door of any street in the country.

The stories from Digital Nation are at once unique and universal, and they unite people across communities and generations – a little like the commute to work at 9 o’clock every Monday morning.

Mark O'Brien, Producer of Digital Nation