UK- With viewing figures approaching three million, BBC1's Saturday Kitchen is one of the most successful Saturday morning television shows of the past decade.
Recently its production company, Cactus TV, started working with Prolink Television Facilities, who in turn brought the many benefits of a DiGiCo SD10B mixing console to the show.
Established in 1989, Prolink supplies equipment and staff to many of the world's highest profile broadcasters, including the BBC and ITV, and a large portfolio of production companies. When leading Production Company Cactus TV was looking to move both to new premises and into High Definition broadcasting, the company took the opportunity to consider potential new partners and chose Prolink.
"We provide anything from a single man and single camera through to OB trucks, permanent installations as per Saturday Kitchen and some 'flyaway' type systems. Our key aim is to provide a personal service, focusing on individual contracts and delivering the very best we can," says Prolink director Michael Dugard. "We were delighted when Cactus chose us to partner them. We went in with a lot of new, high quality equipment - including the DiGiCo SD10B - which they are pleased with."
Prolink invested in the SD10B as the company's first digital console and it has proved the ideal solution for the challenges of Saturday Kitchen.
"We looked at all the options and sought the opinion of our regular sound team, who between them have more years of experience and expertise than they'd probably care to admit to, but that's all extremely valuable so we always seek their input to design and acquisition decisions," says Dugard. "Collectively we thought the SD10B provided a lot of bang for the buck and the functionality it offered was exactly what we needed. Overall it was a perfect marriage with the size of the facility we had.
"It also has a very easy to use interface, which is important because we have three or four supervisors who mix the sound on Saturday Kitchen. If they haven't done it for a few weeks they can come in, be familiar with the console and load up their preferred configuration". Going forward we clearly hope the studios will host other shows and events, so the combination of the power and flexibility offered by the DiGiCo SD10B will serve us well."
