Massive 3 million views in 6 days for viral video!

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The Ratcliffe shutdown rushes package as used by the BBC.

Everyone is trying to get one, but it’s almost entirely pot-luck as to how.

When Uniper asked us to shoot exclusive external video of the Ratcliffe Power Station shutdown, we knew how important this was historically.

But not quite how big it would be in the present.

Ratcliffe was the UK’s final coal fired power station. Shutting it down brought to an end 140 years of history and opened the door to huge media interest.

So capturing the moment when the button was pressed to take coal out of use, was a big deal for our crew.

Page One video and photography team at Ratcliffe power station for last coal electricity production in the UK.
The team on location for the last day of coal powered electricity production in the UK.

With a two person team in the control room to shoot video, and a third on stills, a simple but thorough plan was followed to ensure we got the key content.

This included the moment the button was actually pushed, the fall-off of output, and the operator’s final comments.

We chose Emma, our youngest team member to shoot the button press, and history was suitably captured.

3 million cumulative video views on BBC, SKY, and ITV domestic social platforms, and thousands of comments and shares.

Plus millions of views on broadcast TV news shows around the world, and embeds on many media sites.

This was on-top of 1.5 million views for the “Last Coal Train” video earlier in the year, together with considerable broadcast views from that.

So total viral video views on UK social media exceeded 4.5 million on these two events alone.

It’s rare to have the opportunity to be part of something historical. It’s even more rare to capture that moment exclusively, producing footage which will be the key historical content.

Undoubtedly that is why the video went viral, but we are happy to celebrate even so!

A big thanks from all of us at Page One to the team at Ratcliffe and Uniper for giving us the opportunity, and trusting us to deliver!

The shutdown wasn’t the only work we did at Ratcliffe over the past year BTW.

So stay tuned for something really exciting coming soon!

If you need corporate video footage for external media use, or to capture something historical for your company, get in touch! Our team is ready to help!