Canal+ equips TV production teams with Wirecast Gear for live streaming

Canal+.has bought eight Wirecast Gear systems from Telestream for streaming use during their live broadcast productions. The systems started being deployed in May 2017. Canal+, a major producer of news, sports and current affairs programmes in France, saw a need to extend its live streaming capabilities to make them more flexible and capable of covering specific events at short notice.

“Our intention in acquiring Wirecast Gear is to enable each of our TV production teams to create event-based live streaming channels, particularly on social media platforms such as Dailymotion, Facebook and YouTube. Whether it’s a major news story, a sporting or cultural event, we need to be able to react to production opportunities and start live streaming more or less immediately,” explained Charles Lesoil Head of Content Engineering at Canal+.

“Also, we needed more than a simple streamer- we have to be able to remove ads that are present in a broadcast feed, or insert ads and promos that are designed for our live social media channels. Wirecast gives us all these production tools, and its integration with the major social media platforms is flawless.

“Wirecast is so simple to use and produces really stunning professional-quality live productions. It enables us to put live streaming capabilities in the hands of non-technical creative staff: all they need is 10 minutes training in order to become a fully proficient Wirecast streamer,” explained Lesoil.

Already, Canal+ has used Wirecast Gear to stream live action from a range of major cultural and sporting events, including the Festival de Cannes 2017 where all the action was streamed to Dailymotion, and the America’s Cup Sailing Race Series plus soccer’s Champion’s League Final where live action was streamed to Facebook. “These fast moving events are perfect for the creative power that Wirecast brings,” explained Charles Lesoil. “With no technical support, our production teams can very quickly create a live stream whenever a newsworthy event happens. Whether it’s an election, a motor race or a music concert, we are able to deliver live content to our viewers on any platform.”