Diamond TV used smartphones and TVU technology to cover Zambia’s 2026 general election from locations across 226 constituencies. The workflow was designed for as many as 130 phone sources and reached a peak of 111 simultaneous feeds.
Reporters contributed directly from their phones while producers managed the incoming video from one centralized control room connected to Diamond TV’s existing SDI studio. Over the election period, the broadcaster delivered 72 hours of live programming and used the larger source pool to bring more regional updates into the national output.
The scale is notable because it separates field reach from the number of conventional camera crews and bonded transmitters. A newsroom can assign many more contributors, then select and coordinate them centrally. The tradeoff moves into return communication, source identification, network variability, monitoring and editorial verification.
TVU and Diamond TV confirm the feed counts and programme duration. The case study does not publish phone models, contribution bitrates, carrier diversity, latency, audio arrangements, failure rate or how many feeds were recorded rather than monitored live.
