Inside the Production Miracle of A&E's "Live PD"

quot39What if we broadcast live from police ridealongs39quot is how Cesareo recalls the pitchamp160 And thus from that one phone call Live PD was bornamp160 Now in its third season it39s a ratings beast for AampampE pulling in an average audience of 23 million with seven days of viewingamp160 The series has tripled its audience since its premiere in October 2016Live PD is also a production beast using a team of over 100 people for each live threehour broadcast pulling in feeds from eight different police sheriff and highway patrol departments all around the country from California to Oklahoma to South CarolinaSuch a beast takes time to grow though and while Cesareo sold the project over the phone there was a lengthy gestation period for developmentamp160 quotWe had to develop it on three very complex tracksquot Cesareo explainsamp160 The first of those tracks was getting access to and the approval of various law enforcement agenciesamp160 That was no small task particularly in a political environment in which policing has become a third railThe entire idea behind Live PD came out of seeing police departments tweeting about their patrolsamp160 quotWe wondered if they were willing to tweet on patrol were they also willing to have live cameras following them aroundquot Cesareo saysamp160 There was a clear incentive to improve relations between law enforcement and the communities in which they workedamp160 But some departments took more coaxing than others to allow camera crews to follow multiple officers on their patrolsamp160 It took the Live PD team a full 10 months to get the first six departments on boardquotIt was a numbers gamequot Cesareo explainsamp160amp160Ridealongs can be slowamp160on occasion so how do you capture enough compellingamp160materialamp160 The team must follow enough officers at least 12 so that they have something happening at all times during the threehour live broadcastsamp160The second track was the legal trackamp160 Big Fish and AampampE had to figure out how to handle not just the content of the broadcasts in an ethical manner but legal issues brought up by different departmentsamp160 quotWe had to work out the legal issues involved with following the police on their patrols and the encounters with citizens from the most trivial incidents to scenes of great dangerquot Cesareo recallsamp160 Those were difficult conversations to have at first with no previous show like it to point to as a guidelineThe third and perhaps most crucial track was the technology used to telecast the showamp160 If Big Fish had pitched Live PD to AampampE even just a few years earlier it would have been dead in the water because of the technical constraintsamp160 quotWe would need a satellite truck a helicopter with a repeater to bounce the signal from the camera packs to the truck and always a clear line of sightquot Cesareo saysamp160 It just wouldn39t have workedBut then came a miracle camera packs that used cellular technology to transmit their footageamp160 They contain eight cellular modems two for each of the major cell carriers in the USamp160 The packs automatically funnel footage across all eight signals using the modems to boost speed and clarityamp160This miracle solution came at truly the last minuteamp160 There were only a few weeks left before Live PD was supposed to start shooting and a test using technology from a different company had been a failureamp160 Cesareo had a few sleepless nights as it appeared they had no way of actually pulling off the quotlivequot part of Live PDIn came Live PD39s technical team which discovered a European company that had recently begun distributing proprietary cellular transmission packs in the USamp160 They immediately set up a test with their equipmentamp160 It workedamp160 The project was savedGood thing tooamp160 Aside from thousands of people recently gathering to watch the 200th episode in Richland County South Carolina home to one of the departments featured on the show an unanticipated side effect of Live PD has been an increase in recruitment at the departments seen on the programamp160 Producers from Big Fish are in constant talks with various law enforcement agencies in order to showcase policing across the countryBefore Live PD Big Fish had never produced a single hour of live televisionamp160 quotNow we have more than 600 hours under our beltquot says Cesareoamp160 quotWe like the projects that make your stomach hurtquot he addsamp160 quotWe like the projects where people tell you 39You can39t do that39quotSo is all the work worth itamp160 quotMore thanquot Cesareo affirmsClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160

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Inside the Production Miracle of A&E's "Live PD"

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Oriana Schwindt

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Inside the Production Miracle of A&E's "Live PD"

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