Headed by broadcaster and producer Martin Everard, the company was established in 1993 to provide corporations around the world with the opportunity to harness the marketing power of television in a secure and controlled way. It specialises in the production of documentary style corporate profiles that are broadcast via a worldwide network of television channels. The profiles are also broadcast via the worldwide web using LITV's own portal, www.thebusinesschannel.com.

In recent months, LITV has been creating stunning map graphics for its clients using Curious Software's Curious World Maps, which last year won a Queen's Award for Innovation. This powerful software package gives users total creative control, enabling them to quickly and easily create broadcast quality still and animated maps of anywhere in the world. The software includes built-in vector databases of the whole world comprising detailed outline data for countries, regions, states and counties. It also includes over one million place names covering towns, mountains and other physical features such as rivers, lakes and roads. Imported local data or satellite images can also be incorporated, making it simple to create in minutes an animation than zooms in from a spinning globe right down to a single building.

LITV acquired Curious World Maps with the Natural Earth option to create maps for a series of short programmes that are being compiled onto CD and will be distributed with the August/September 2005 issue of fDi, the Financial Times' inward investment magazine.

"We wanted to incorporate animated maps to illustrate various elements of the narrative such as export routes and flight paths," says LITV director Martin Everard. "I was already familiar with Curious World Maps, having been responsible for introducing the software to the unit I used to run at the BBC. At that time we were using it on a series called "Holiday in Style" for UK Style and also for other material we were producing for BBC World. When LITV needed a map graphics software I turned to Curious World Maps because I knew from experience that it offered the best solution."

Among the videos that LITV has produced for the fDi CD is one for the Botswana Export Development and Investment Agency, BEDIA. The video, which is also profiled on www.thebusinesschannel.com, gives the background to BEDIA and explains why Botswana is Africa's success story. Map graphics help place the country in the wider context of Southern Africa and also show the proliferation of transport links.

LITV has also used Curious World Maps' animation facilities to create the opening titles for each location featured on the Inward Investment Locations CD.

"So far, our clients have been as impressed as we have been with the maps we've created using Curious World Maps," Everard adds. "Personally, I am only just beginning to appreciate the extent of its capabilities. In future, we plan to use it to illustrate all the locations featured in our programmes."

go back...