BBC shares facilities for Super Bowl coverage

The BBC went lean and mean for Super Bowl XLVII but fans of the game in the UK were treated to a commercial free broadcast that offered the complete CBS Sports production, including commentary, and plenty of social media interaction as former NFL player Willie McGinest answers questions from fans alongside Mike Carlson and Mark Chapman.

“This year is quite a story being that the game is in New Orleans and it’s fantastic being out here,” says Ron Chakraborty, BBC Sport, Major Events editor. “We arrived on Thursday while our radio colleagues were out here on Tuesday for Media Day.”

The BBC shared a small OB unit from PMTV with broadcasters from Germany and Japan and transmission was done out of a small satellite vehicle from Kent State University. It also had a Sony XDCAM camera capturing shorter segments that were edited using a Final Cut Pro editing system in the BBC production trailer.

“We take the American network commentary and the challenge is not being a commercial network we have to fill 25 to 30 commercial breaks,” he explains. “We used to about eight or nine fillers like Super Bowl memories but we only did three last year because we can take advantage of social media.”

Along with the live TV broadcast fans were able to listen to the BBC radio commentary via the Red Button service. Red Button also offered a repeat of the game on Monday.