Enjoy the journey: Shining a torch on Warner Bros. Discovery Sports’ senior director Laura Aira
Laura Aira, Senior Director of Production, WBD Sports, Europe has worked on motorsports, snooker, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf, football, cycling, winter sports, boxing and the Olympics.
“Every day is different in the world of sport; it’s unscripted and unpredictable,” says Laura Aira, senior director, production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports. Sport is the epitome of hard work and dedication; it shines a torch on the fact that improvement comes with practice and effort and that competition can encourage a higher standard of achievement for all. It encourages respect for teammates and it helps you learn to lose and come back stronger. Sport encourages you to learn from mistakes and that is a message that I like to give to my team. Sport brings out passion in people and inspires me every day.
“I enjoy pulling a plan together and spending time with inspirational people at the top of their game. The variety that my working day brings from dealing with different teams such as rights, programming, finance, legal, facilities, technical, creative, digital, marketing, external workforce, IT, security, health and safety, travel, talent and commentators keeps me on my toes. Production management really gets to touch the full spectrum of all departments and there is always something to learn from each team.
“Show passion and have a solution-focussed mindset which doesn’t dwell on mistakes. Spend time getting experience in your chosen career path because the more experience you have, the more confidence and ability you will gain to make decisions quickly.”
“Sports broadcasting is changing at a rapid pace, which can be the best and worst thing about working in live sport. The speed at which we work at to implement the changes and get our high volume of content to air is demanding and exhilarating,” Aira continues. “I have two wonderful, young children – aged two and four – and being a working mum in this industry can be tough because sport is not a Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm job. It quite often feels like there are never enough hours in the day to juggle everything.
“I’m very fortunate that Warner Bros. Discovery Sports is incredibly supportive of working parents and I have learnt to put my own boundaries in place and structure my workload in a way that I can be there for my family, and switch off and recharge at the end of the day.”
Enjoying the journey
On how she first got into sports broadcasting, she says: “I was a sporty child and really loved to watch athletics. I remember the excitement of the Olympics coming around every four years and working out if I’d be old enough to compete in the next one! I used to circle the events that I wanted to watch in the TV guide and plan my day around it.
“My parents took me to watch the athletics Grand Prix meetings a couple of times when it came to Crystal Palace and I was so intrigued by the people filming the event; it seemed like such a cool job to be so close to the action. The athletes were so inspirational to me and I have great memories of being part of the crowd and getting behind the British athletes at their home event, it was completely thrilling and exhilarating.”
Aira completed a degree in Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. The course specialised in Film & TV Production. “I really enjoyed the ‘producing’ module, learning about producing script reports, pulling efficient shoot schedules together, getting crews booked and organised, finding shoot locations, producing budgets and cost reports. I loved to plan and organise so this was naturally the best fit for me. I won an RTS award for best student film and met an incredible, inspirational group of friends. We all motivated each other and spurred one another on to apply for roles in the industry, sharing contacts, etc.”
Laura Aira, Senior Director of Production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, Europe: “production management is the beating heart of production”
Aira’s first job was, “work experience on a children’s TV show cleaning gunge off the floor”. She progressed form the gunge-wiping quickly, however. “I produced script reports for a film company and then my big break in sport came with some work experience for the sports radio department at IMG. My first paid job was at Eurosport. It was a real sliding doors moment in my journey; I was offered a production and commentary assistant position at Eurosport and a runners job on the film The Golden Compass starting around the same time. I chose Eurosport and the rest is history.”
Over the years she has worked her way up through production management – starting as assistant, moving on to co-ordinator, then junior production manager, production manager, acting head of production, head of production – to now, senior director of production at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports.
“The experience that I gained from each role and the variety of sports that I worked on was invaluable to me as I gained knowledge of motorsports, snooker, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf, football, cycling, winter sports, boxing and the Olympics,” she comments. “I loved my time working onsite at events and I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world with some productions.
Challenging role
“Moving from an on-site position to more of an office-based production leadership role was a challenge at first,” she adds. “It’s a completely different way of working to have a macro-view across all sports rather than an expertise on a specific event. Each promotion requires you to step up and learn and develop new skills. I really enjoy the guiding, mentoring and coaching part of my role now.”
Since BT Sport – now TNT Sports – joined Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, Aira has been busy. She explains: “Over the past year I took a lead role integrating BT Sport into WBD Sports, aligning workflows and processes. With the volume of content across WBD Sports growing substantially both in the UK and across Europe there was a need for a senior production role; this was to support the leadership team in overseeing the production management of some of our pillar sports across Europe and ensure everyone is united and working together to find efficiencies.
“We are a company transitioning through a lot of change which can be challenging but we are all ultimately working to the same end goa: how can we grow the business? I am driven by the challenges and change that production management continuously faces to support this goal and produce accurate budgets, negotiate the best deals with suppliers, build strong teams, bring all departments across the business together and work with technical teams to research how we can use technology to do things more efficiently.
“The hardest thing is spinning all the plates. There can be days that are taken up by back-to-back meetings, my emails will pile up and I can’t make a dent in my to-do list. I have had to become better at delegating to my team and managing my diary.”
“It is our job to support the creative teams and facilitate bringing the editorial vision to life,” Aira continues. “In my mind production management is the beating heart of production and the connective tissue that brings all the departments together, ensuring everyone is working to the same end goal.”
However, she adds that there are challenges to her role: “The hardest thing is spinning all the plates. There can be days that are taken up by back-to-back meetings, my emails will pile up and I can’t make a dent in my to-do list. I have had to become better at delegating to my team and managing my diary to keep on top of everything. I’ve also learnt to set clear owners and areas of accountability within the teams that I work alongside.”
There have been two major technological breakthroughs that have and are revolutionising how sports broadcasts are produced, according to Aira. She explains: “Remote production has been a real game changer for us. We used to send full teams on-site to produce events but now, thanks to technology, we can embrace remote production in almost everything we do. This has enabled us to find efficiencies across Europe and to achieve more sustainable productions.
“In my opinion internet-based contribution – whether it be fixed SRT base or mobile LTE solutions – has been a game-changing moment for sports broadcasting. It has enabled us to be more efficient in sending crews onsite around the world to enhance the storytelling around a higher volume of sport.”
Going the distance
On the coolest thing Aira has worked on in the course of her career so far, she says: “The Davis Cup Tennis in 2015 was really cool because it was a year when Team GB went through to win the final in Belgium. As a broadcaster, Eurosport was responsible for producing the world feed for the matches based in the UK and really went on the journey with Team GB all the way through to that final. When you’re producing a world feed everything needs to be planned with meticulous attention to detail. I learnt a lot about the needs of other broadcasters over the course of that year.”
To other women looking at a career in sports broadcasting, Aira concludes: “Always show passion and have a solution-focussed mindset which doesn’t dwell on mistakes. Spend time getting experience in your chosen career path because the more experience you have, the more confidence and ability you will gain to make decisions quickly.”