2024 in review: July to December
OBS has given Paris 2024 the ultimate discreet audio mix
SVG Europe reviews some of the biggest moments of the year from July to December, from the Paris 2024 Games to the America’s Cup.
July
The Paris 2024 Games started with mobile phones and a private 5G network used to stream live footage of the Opening Ceremony, which featured Olympic athletes travelling down the River Seine – the first time an Olympic Games Opening Ceremony has taken place outside a stadium.
OBS said that more than 11,000 hours of content around the Games, with upwards of 4,000 hours of sports and ceremony coverage and 2,350 hours of additional content available to rightsholders via the multi-clip feed (MCF) were made available during the Summer Games, with 72 native UHD contribution multilateral feeds, 28 MCF feeds, 81 UHD distribution feeds (and 82 HD feeds) produced via 47 production units out of 70 production galleries – the effort was immense, and the largest Olympics effort ever.
During Paris 2024, the OBS Multi-Camera Replay Systems provided frame-freeze slow-motion replays of athletes’ performances. And, as part of OBS Cloud 3.0, OBS Live Cloud became the main method of remote distribution to Media Rights-Holders (MRHs) for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, taking over from satellite which was launched during the Olympics Games Tokyo 1964.
There was also a “seismic change” in the way that women’s sport was covered during Paris 2024. For the first time at an Olympic Games, Paris 2024 will see an equal number of men and women competing, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) devising a more gender-balanced programme with the competition schedule made up of 152 women’s events, 157 men’s events and 20 mixed-gender events.
“It has been very important to make sure that our teams also reflect as much as practically possible gender equality. We have to be very transparent, and I don’t have any issue in saying that our sports broadcasting industry is one of the weakest on this front, and we need to do things [to address that],” said Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) chief executive Yiannis Exarchos.
At Wimbledon, ESPN settled into a completely overhauled broadcast centre, complete with eye-catching new studios. Following an 18-month project, the roll out of a state-of-the-art new broadcast facility spread across two floors marked a transition to IP technology for ESPN and following an extensive RFP, this year was also the first year of a new deal with EMG / Gravity Media.
Meanwhile, in its second year as Wimbledon Broadcast Services (WBS) Production Partner, Whisper has added to its offering with an enhanced access All England feed, BBC executive producer Sally Richardson worked on her 25th – and final – Wimbledon Championships, and the SW19 Championships marked the completion of a busy summer of tennis for Moov, who were previously at Queen’s, Eastbourne and the Wimbledon Qualifiers at Roehampton.
August
With the Paris Olympics concluding on 11 August, the OBS team was able to reflect on its accomplishments before the Paralympics began on August 28. OBS CTO Sotiris Salamouris spoke with SVG about the multi-year effort. The massive effort by OBS delivered nearly 5,000 feeds to rightsholders either in Paris or back home in a variety of ways: SMPTE ST 2022, SMPTE ST 2110, SRT, HLS for mobile device services, and more.
Europe’s biggest broadcaster of the Games, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), also reflected on a stellar Summer Olympic Games, reporting record viewership and engagement across its many platforms and channels.
And, echoing Salamouris’ sentiments that “the old SDI world for us is kind of dead”, Matt McDonald, group SVP EMEA Broadcast Services for Warner Bros. Discovery spoke with SVG Europe about how Paris 2024 represented a further maturation of IP technology. “We’re fully 2110 for this Olympics for the first time, in terms of everything from production all the way through to playout. It’s all IP, and there’s no SDI handoff. And I think what we’re seeing now is a much more mature, reliable, robust state, so that it works in an end-to-end fashion. It’s a lot more hardened, a lot more secure, a lot more robust,” he said.
OBS CTO Sotiris Salamouris
Following on from the Summer Games, the 2024 Paralympics brought unprecedented coverage to viewers globally, as the International Paralympic Committee secured a record number of rights holding broadcasters that will share the 549 medal events with 1,400 hours of live coverage from all 22 Paralympic sports. John Lisko, the IPC’s managing director of global media rights, explained to SVG Europe how coverage was managed and distributed.
And SVG Europe went under the bonnet of IMG’s English Football League (EFL) production contract, a large-scale undertaking that utilises interesting broadcasting and connectivity technology and services. One week into the new season, SVG Europe caught up with Peter Walker, senior producer, and Brian Leonard, head of engineering, to find out more about how it is done.
September
Technical services provider Cloudbass supported DAZN’s host broadcast of the Anthony Joshua versus Daniel Dubois bout for the IBF world heavyweight title at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 21 September. The entire fight was broadcast using cinematic cameras, and was the biggest use of Sony F5500 cameras in live boxing in Europe since a trial of a single F5500 camera during a fight in 2022, and it is also the first full cinematic production in boxing for the region.
Former BBC Sport executive producer and lead director Sally Richardson was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to European Sports Broadcasting award at SVG Europe’s Sport Production Summit on Thursday 12 September, where she shared highlights from her career in front of a packed audience at De Hallen Studios in Amsterdam.
And IBC has shared figures from this year’s exhibition and conference, with 45,085 visitors from 170 countries gathering at the RAI Amsterdam. IBC said that in addition to drawing 2,000 more visitors than last year, the show attracted over 1,350 exhibitors – up 100 from 2023, with 150 new exhibitors.
October
A host of production innovations were introduced for the 37th America’s Cup, including UHD HDR coverage and a new data and graphics offering to help explain the action to viewers. Coverage of the sailing competition, which took place in Barcelona and culminated in the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Match starting on the 12 of October was led by an in-house team and delivered by a new consortium of broadcast production companies, including Spain’s Mediapro. Some of the production innovations included filming in UHD HDR HLG 2020 and surround sound audio – both firsts for the America’s Cup.
America’s Cup production team included Chris Carpenter and Leon Sefton
When Danish top-flight football league Superliga started its new season in July this year, it was with a completely new broadcasting set-up. Last year, production company DMC and Superligaen, the company owned by the 12 clubs competing in the Superliga, created Matchday Production, an entity whose main objective is to deliver a comprehensive broadcast feed of live matches sold to broadcasters.
SVG Europe’s FutureSport 2024 event, sponsored by Tata Comms Media, brought together leading minds from sports broadcasting to explore how cloud production, artificial intelligence (AI), and data-driven insights are shaping the industry’s future.
Hosted at the iconic All England Lawn Tennis Club London, the day’s presentations and panels also featured insights into the innovative coverage of the Wimbledon Championships and SailGP.
And the 2024 DACH Summit, organised by Sky Deutschland with SVG Europe, brought together industry professionals at the Sky Sport studio in Munich for a day of panels and presentations exploring the future of sports broadcasting, technology, and innovation.
November
In one of the biggest stories of the year, the Premier League announced its plans to establish a new in-house media operations business, effectively ending the longstanding partnership between the Premier League and IMG. Launching for the start of Season 2026/27, the Premier League said it will bring all international media content production and distribution in-house. For 20 years, this service has been provided in partnership with IMG, operating as Premier League Productions (PLP).
American football is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, thanks to the NFL’s international series which grows in size and splendour every year. With three back-to- back games in the UK in October, and a match in Germany at the Allianz Arena in November, Henry Hodgson, NFL UK and Ireland general manager explained all about the NFL’s international strategy.
The 2024 European Curling Championships took place in the south Finland town of Lohja, bringing together 20 teams from across Europe to compete in a sport that has become more popular in recent years, particularly since the 2022 Winter Olympics. Distribution and booking manager for World Curling TV (WCTV), Sylvie Aubrit, who deals with rights holders and unilateral activity on- and off-site, explained how three levels of coverage are produced.
And the third annual SVG Europe Sports Audio Summit was the biggest one yet, attracting more than 100 sound professionals from around Europe for a day of debate, discussion and insight sponsored by Audio-Technica. It included a two-hander from this summer’s Olympic Games, with OBS senior manager, audio, Nuno Duarte who looked at the Games from the host broadcaster’s perspective, and NBC Sports and Olympics, senior director of audio engineering Karl Malone representing one of the world’s biggest rights holders.
December
The 30th anniversary of the European Cross Country Championships took place in Antalya, Turkey on 8 December, and once again the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and European Athletics worked together to ensure an innovative and engaging production for viewers.
Updated plans for a new football competition with a free ad-supported streaming service were revealed by the organisers of the original European Super League. The name “Unify League” was apparently chosen to “emphasise value of streaming platform that shows live matches for free”.
The World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) took place in Hungary between 10 and 15 December 2025, with all the action broadcast internationally, with national broadcasters taking European coverage through Eurovision and via the Eurovision Sport OTT platform which provided live streams and video-on-demand of all sessions not shown by rights holders and to territories in Europe without rights holders.
On 21 December, heavyweight boxers Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury went toe-to-toe again in Riyadh with the Ukrainian fighter’s WBA, WBC and WBO world titles on the line, with DAZN host broadcaster for the occasion.
And, with the 2025 PDC World Darts Championship taking place at Alexandra Palace in London from 13 December 2024 to 3 January 2025, with Sky once again responsible for coverage of the event.
Read more 2024 in review: January to June