Canal+, beIN SPORT outline camera details for Ligue 1 coverage

This Friday (August 9) the Ligue 1 French Championship will get underway when Olympique Lyonnais plays host to Nice, and newly promoted Monaco travels to Bordeaux. Ahead of what promises to be another dynamic year for this exciting tournament, SVG Europe spoke to broadcasters about camera plans and the scope of their coverage.

Last year the National Football League auctioned the television rights for the following four seasons (2012 to 2016). Canal+ secured the first four rights packages in exchange for an annual fee of 420 million euros, whilst beIN SPORT (which is part of the Al-Jazeera group) secured package number five for 90 million euros per year.

Consequently, Canal+ broadcasts two out of the three top matches live each day, whereas beIN SPORT broadcasts one out of the three most important matches. Both pay-TV channels also produce their own programmes devoted entirely to the whole championship.

As far as the technical production is concerned, Canal+ has signed an exclusivity agreement with Euro Media France for the coverage of its Ligue 1 matches. The deal will run for an additional three years.

Canal+ will set up 22 to 30 cameras for each event. This year, the Canal Football App (developed with EVS and it’s C-Cast software and with Syma Vision) is working for all the second screens. New options are set to be discovered during the season.

As for beIN SPORT, the broadcaster will call on the services of AMP VISUAL TV for the matches taking place in 13 of the 20 stadiums that are likely to be covered. For the other seven, the Qatari channel will use the services of Imagina Group France, a subsidiary of the Spanish group Mediapro, which is already a regular service provider for the Al-Jazeera group channels. As a matter of fact, Mediapro set up the beIN SPORT studios in Boulogne-Billancourt , close to Paris.

Incidentally, AMP VISUAL TV is in charge of the production for the Ligue 2 that is jointly broadcast by beIN SPORT and Eurosport.

For the Ligue 1, the Qatari channel deploys 16 cameras (including four Superloupe cameras and one Super slow-motion cameras). On the left-hand side of the field a Junior Microfilms camera dolly is used, whilst on the right-hand side a camera operator is equipped with a wireless (RF) camera.

For the Ligue 2, five cameras are used to cover the main match whereas only two are used for the other matches, but they are always shot in HD.

Additionally, beIN SPORT has asked Ad Valem to lay fiber optic cable in certain stadiums, using dark fiber with 200 Mbit/s capacity.