GENRE REPORT
LIVE TV
Remote production technology allows BT to
reduce the number of staff and trucks it sends to event locations, with staff such as directors, producers, editors and vision mixers working on production from galleries in a main studio, which also handles backend infrastructure and engineering support. Such a set up makes sense in the Covid-19 era of
social distancing and reduced travel. Crucially, there are environmental savings too. Hindhaugh says BT Sport’s carbon emissions have reduced by 50% since going remote. Creativity will also be unleashed by remote
production, reckons Hindhaugh, particularly when 5G takes off and cameras can be untethered in stadiums. He plays down the possible financial savings from remote production, though. “There are lots of benefits, but it is not financial, although everyone thinks it is.” Even though it is still early days for the technology,
it has more than proved itself during the pandemic. BT Sport recently remotely produced 13 live Premier League games in one week – its most ever. “We’ve made it work,” says Hindhaugh, acknowledging that it is not without its stresses for production teams. Comms and talkback are arguably the biggest challenge. “If you ask any producer or director, most of them will accept that for remote work their anxiety is probably a little bit higher because of the challenges around talkback.” Looking ahead, Hindhaugh says that a truck on
site may still be the best option on some occasions, but that remote production is now BT Sport’s standard workflow. The broadcaster plans to enhance the way it does remote production, building galleries in additional locations to its main studio bases in East London’s Stratford and High Wycombe. Glasgow and Birmingham are likely to be the first two bases to be announced. This will allow BT Sport to employ more people from across the UK. “Remote production is about centralising your back end production capabilities – but what we want to do is go one step further and decentralise the centralised back end.” Reflecting on the past 12 months, Hindhaugh says
Covid has given an agility back to the industry that is traditionally quite fixed in the way it does things. Pre- Covid, there was an attitude of, ‘why change things if they work?’ “Remote production would have been a lot harder to roll out, especially from a cultural aspect, if we hadn’t had Covid.” The demand for remote production has also
been felt by studio facilities such as Salford’s dock10 studios, which has become a hub for remote coverage of sporting events such as Six Nations rugby, the FA Cup through to the Australian Open. “The last 12 months has proven that remote
production can work,” says dock10 head of studios Andy Waters. Looking ahead, he puts forward
Spring 2021
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a balanced argument about the use of remote production. Broadcasters and producers will often want to be on location in force at an event to allow their team to easily tap into the atmosphere and personalities on the ground. It’s not just remote production where innovation in
live sports has been seen during the pandemic. Sports producers say access to talent has grown over the past year. With few distractions from the outside world, sports stars and managers have become increasingly open to self-filming interviews at home. “We’ve found players are far more accessible than they normally are,” says IMG’s Graham Fry. “Normally they give you 10 minutes at the end of training, and they’re looking at their watch because they want to go home. Now, they’re in their living rooms, they’ve got a cup of coffee, and they’re giving us better content because they’re relaxed.” For example, IMG interviewed Liverpool
manager Jurgen Klopp and RB Leipzig manager Julian Nagelsmann together over Zoom ahead of their Champions League encounter in March. “Until we
moved into this remote environment, we would never have thought about having opposition managers chatting to each other over Zoom to talk about an upcoming game,” says IMG executive producer Pete Spring, who heads up UEFA programming. “It really has opened up doors in terms of access.” IMG executive producer Alison Witkover, who
looks after tennis coverage for Amazon and snooker production for the BBC, backs up this point. The Amazon production team, for example, gave a camera to Andy Murray’s team to film behind the scenes content each day during the US Open – from shots of the tennis star’s ice bath to tours of the players’ area. “That’s the type of thing we would look to do more of in the future,” says Witkover.
MUSIC Understandably, the live music sector has been one of the hardest hit by coronavirus pandemic with artists tours and concerts halted and festivals such as Glastonbury and Download cancelled for two years in a row.
“THE EMOTION COMES FROM YOUR AUDIENCE. THAT REALLY GIVES HEART AND SOUL TO YOUR EVENT”
CLAIRE POPPLEWELL, BBC STUDIOS EVENTS
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