Helicopters Used for News Coverage

KXAS 5 Dallas - Live Police Pursuit of a 18 wheeler lorry on the motorway. Police have blown the tires. Still riding on the rims, likely tearing up the roadway. WHERE'S CHUCK NORRIS!?
This is a new one or quite rare. NBC may have geoblocked, not sure.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/on-air/as-seen-on/Live-Coverage-from-NBC-Dallas-Fort-Worth-NBCDFW--310760641.html

BNO News says this link has the GEO BLOCK removed.
https://t.co/i2N60zjfSj

Also being broadcast on CBSN Live
https://t.co/MSKCFsWq3N

Some rather hazy but dramatically-lit-by-sunset helicopter shots, from some distance, of the aftermath of an explosion at a power station in Didcot on BBC News just now:

http://horman.net/images/didcot1.jpg

Edit: 17:18 and they've got shots from a helicopter right above the site, but with a bad link with lots of artefacts (that's why the tower looks wonky; it's not because of damage!)

http://horman.net/images/didcot2.jpg

Oh, and some somewhat... well, morbid would be an unforunate choice of word... helicopter shots of Pauline Cafferkey's ambulance being driven down the motorway.

I wonder where the link Rx site is ? In fact, outside of London (where I assume Crystal Palace is the Rx site)
how many terrestrial SHF Rx points are there still ?

I think Bristol/Mendip still has one, but I'm sure Hannington and Oxford don't, so that link was probably working back into London/CP ?

Looking at the map Didcot is about 60 miles by road to Crystal Palace. Google Maps doesn't appear to show any significant terrain. Shouldn't the helicopter transmitter have that type of range if they are in the clear? I'm only speaking based on what I've heard/know about US news gathering which have receive ranges of 100 miles from a single tower. Maybe that's because it's a highly directional signal where a gyroscopic antenna points it to the receive site whose antenna moves as well.

I'm not sure if BBC is the same but Sky News Tech on Twitter said they have one in London and they deploy trucks as needed.

Yes, you're basically looking down the Thames Valley from there into London. All the London FM and DAB radio stations are easily receivable on my car radio on the nearby A34, so a chopper should have no problem 'seeing' CP from there

How long before news companies send up drones with GoPros from an OB van?

Until they melt. Good Morning America did a week of sweeps stunts using drones. One of which was using a drone to get video of a volcano in Iceland. They managed to get the shot but part of the casing melted.

Here in the US the laws are quite prohibitive for news drones. They have to be piloted by persons with a pilot license, the flight plan has to be in advance, clear weather, and cannot be near or over any people and buildings.

That's pretty much the rules for any commercial use of drones in the UK. Must be operated by a competent person, with line of sight to the drone at all times, and kept a minimum distance away from all buildings, objects and persons (with limited exceptions for those that are under the direct control of the operator). You certainly couldn't just turn up, chuck one in the air and start broadcasting from wherever you feel.

No. Although they were used for some shots of the Christmas floods a couple of months ago ?

And, I notice broadcasters seem happy to use drone footage taken by the public ? The NEP Visions fire
in Bracknell in November is one example, BBC, Meridian, (and newspapers) all used some drone footage
from a local person, I suspect that wasn't 'authorised' in any way ?

I thought the chopper usually worked into an SNG truck?

It probably can, but I suspect the chopper made it to Didcot a while before any SNG van did ?

I can't imagine it could use an SNG truck as a link point in Central (or even Greater) London, they would frequently be out of sight of each other ?

Maybe the chopper signal went via an MCR dish on the roof of BBC Oxford?