50 TVBEurope The Workflow
Sony Music artists One Direction were the subject of the first programme filmed at TV3 Group’s Sony HD Studios
we would invest in TV3 as an Irish broadcaster. “Six years later, despite the
worst recession in history and a market crash in advertising, we are still here but with a difference. In 2010, as Doughty Hanson had to re-finance the business to get it through another savage year, they set aside €4.5million to build this studio because of their and our commitment to creating the best Irish content. Of course being a broadcaster I slightly overspent! “My colleague [TV3 commercial director] Pat Kiely had the great idea to enter into a partnership with Sony to ensure we had the very best equipment and they fell into the enthusiastic embrace of this extraordinary project. So together Sony, Doughty Hanson and with a little work from ourselves we have built this, one of the most advanced and best television studios in Europe.” The Republic of Ireland has
One direction
Europe’s first Sony HD Studios has launched at Irish commercial television broadcaster TV3 Group in Dublin. Fergal Ringrose attended the recent opening
TV3 GROUP’S Sony HD Studios Dublin launched in March, in what is believed to be the first Sony-branded TV studio space in Europe. At 5,000sqft it stands as the biggest purpose-built HD TV studio in Ireland, accommodating a seated audience of up to 200. TV3 hopes that the studio will become a centre for in-house production; a production hub for Irish and international companies; creative centre for ad agencies; and a media facility for corporate training events. TV3’s own flagship current affairs show, Tonight With Vincent Browne, was first to be broadcast from the studio last month — while the first third-party production to take place was a half-hour programme on One Direction, the world’s biggest boy band, for Sony Music Entertainment Ireland. At the launch event TV3 CEO David McRedmond said “six years
forTV3
a highly unusual commercial television broadcasting landscape, in that public broadcaster RTÉ is dual-funded through advertising revenue and a licence fee. TV3 never sees a penny of this licence fee. Instead it has to compete in a distorted marketplace where its main competitor can cross-subsidise if it falls short or overspends in any way that would simply be catastrophic for a stand-alone commercial competitor. Against that background, in a challenged market through a brutal six-year Irish recession, the decision to press ahead with the new studio shows both remarkable fortitude and confidence on the part of TV3’s owners and management. As director of Broadcasting Niall Cogley told us, “it was brave. It was a difficult time to do it. If there’s an upturn, it positions us very well in terms of both the commercial market and also our own productions. It would be a nice problem to have if we’ve too much content and not enough studio space!”
Technology and suppliers An invited audience attended the launch night for the new 5,000sqft 200-seater high definition studio in Dublin
ago, shortly after UK investment house Doughty Hanson acquired TV3 and I came in as a new CEO we met with Eamon Ryan, the Minister for Communications.
“I and my Doughty Hanson
colleagues told him that we wanted to transform TV3 from a broadcaster with a largely foreign schedule into a national
broadcaster of Irish programming. We wanted Government to reform the market so that commercial broadcasting would have a fair shake and in return
Following the launch event, TVBEurope visited the new studio and spoke to chief engineer Jose de Freitas about its technology journey. “We’ve been doing eight hours programming a day at TV3, from one very small studio — with 12-year-old equipment. So as a company we decided we needed another space. “We spent a lot of time looking at revamping the existing
www.tvbeurope.com May 2013
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