A studio operations company run by people from the gallery
newzara began in 2014 to give television studios a calmer way to manage equipment, crews and production schedules, and it has stayed focused on that work.
Built from the studio floor outwards
newzara was founded in Reading in 2014 by Hannah Whitfield, who came from studio floor management. She had seen how much of a broadcast day depends on small details that nobody had written down in one place. The company grew out of fixing that.
Hannah spent years on studio floors before starting the company, where she saw the same pattern repeat. Equipment was booked in one list, crew calls lived in another, and show plans were scattered across emails and printed sheets. Most days it worked, because experienced people filled the gaps from memory.
The trouble came when a day changed, a bulletin was reshuffled, or a new crew member arrived. Then the gaps showed. newzara started as an attempt to put equipment, schedules and production plans in one shared workspace that a floor manager and a producer could both read without explanation.
Since then the work has widened to cover camera movement, lighting design, sound and audio, newsroom rundowns and live entertainment run-sheets. Each area was added because studios asked for help with it, not because it made the list longer.
The team today combines people from engineering, workflow consulting and studio operations. Daniel Okafor builds the scheduling and equipment tools, drawing on his background as a broadcast systems engineer. Priya Nair and Tom Bradshaw work directly with clients on workflows and technical planning.
We remain a small company in Reading, working mostly with newsrooms and live entertainment teams. That keeps conversations direct: the people who set up a studio are the people who answer when its routine needs adjusting.
Habits that shape every project
These are the working choices a client can expect to see, from the first conversation through to the weeks after a studio starts using the workspace.
Start with the crew
We talk to the people who run the floor and gallery first, because they know where information actually gets lost.
Keep what already works
If a team's existing routine is sound, we build around it instead of replacing it for the sake of change.
Review after launch
We return to the setup once it has been used for a while and adjust what the crew found awkward.
Plain, shared documents
Rundowns, shot lists and run-sheets are written so every department can read them without translation.
Respect the broadcast clock
Setup and training are planned around transmission times and recordings, not the other way round.
Reachable by phone
Clients can call 0118 496 2031 or email hello@newzara.net and speak to someone who knows their studio.
What guides the daily work at newzara
Television studios run to the clock, and a missed detail is visible to an audience. These principles are not slogans on a wall; they decide how we write a rundown, label a lens or explain a plan to a crew. They matter most on the busy days.
Clarity
Clarity means a plan any crew member can read at a glance. We use the same terms the gallery uses, put changes where everyone sees them, and avoid jargon from outside broadcasting. If a director and a lighting technician read the same page and understand it the same way, the work has done its job.
Reliability
Reliability is mostly routine. Equipment records are kept up to date, schedules are confirmed in writing, and templates are tested against real shows before a team depends on them. We would rather agree a modest setup that holds every day than promise a complicated one that needs constant attention.
Craft
Craft comes from the experience in the team: floor management, broadcast engineering and gallery work. It shows in small choices, such as how a shot list orders camera moves or how a rig change is described. We care about those details because crews feel them on every show.
- 2014Founded
- 6Service areas
- 4Team profiles
