麻豆约拍

When archaelogists found King Richard III's remains under the tarmac in a Leicester City Council car park in 2012, it began a journey that will end on Thursday with his reburial - or reinterment - in Leicester Cathedral.

The conundrum for us has been - how to you take ownership of a story when Channel 4 have already snapped up the rights? It was a challenge we decided to face head on, on radio, TV and online.

Our Inside Out special  was broadcast on Sunday afternoon on 麻豆约拍 One in the East and West Midlands - with repeats on the 麻豆约拍 News channel at 8.30pm on Sunday and Monday. Presenter & producer Marie Ashby relied on local contact building rather than rights buying to put together a compelling programme that told the story from start to finish. Despite not owning the rights the programme included exclusive access to some key moments in the process.

Sunday's procession from the University of Leicester (where the bones have been kept under lock and key) to Bosworth battlefield and then onto Leicester Cathedral was covered live by 麻豆约拍 Radio Leicester - which Editor Jane Hill describes as the biggest and most complex OB in its history. Programmes Editor Lucy Collins and engineer Malcolm Pugh borrowed radio cars (and engineers) from a number of neighbouring radio stations - and the station asked members of the public and businesses along the route to help by lending their Wi-Fi connections to us - allowing reporters to use iPhones to file live back to base in broadcast quality. Using 3G or 4G would have been too unreliable - firstly because you wouldn't get a decent signal along much of the rural route - and secondly because big crowds reduce the bandwidth substantially.

Those radio reporters - along with reporters from 麻豆约拍 East Midlands Today and our network colleagues - helped contribute text and pictures to a which detailed every moment of the procession - and which was hugely popular throughout the day.

That wasn't all we did online though - acting 麻豆约拍 Radio Nottingham Editor Sophie Stewart was drafted in as social media editor for the day, keeping our accounts up to date as the day progressed. Sophie also masterminded a unique WhatsApp service, which thousands of people subscribed to within days of it being launched. Anyone who joins gets a daily update on the run up to the reburial, in what is a first for a domestic 麻豆约拍 service.

Procession done; now we just have to plan for the reburial - with live coverage on the radio, online and a special edition of East Midlands Today which producer Karen Winchester has been planning for months. Then perhaps we won't hear about the last Plantagenet King for another five hundred and thirty years. Although I wouldn't bet on it…

Stuart Thomas is Head of 麻豆约拍 East Midlands