German technical services provider, TVN, has worked alongside the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) and its host broadcast production company, Sportcast, for many years on Bundesliga and the country’s second division men’s game, Bundesliga 2.
2025 marks the beginning of a new four year rights cycle in which the DFL has made significant changes to its rights packages. This season also heralds Germany’s first top tier remote production OB going into action as TVN launches the country’s first high end truck designed to bring a smaller carbon footprint to Bundesliga 2.
SVG Europe caught up with TVN Live Production’s head of sales, Bastian Berlin, to find out more.
Berlin comments on the initial frenzy of activity that the start of a new rights cycle triggers for TVN: “The situation is that we are now starting a new rights situation of four years so these recent weeks are really busy because there are so many new aspects. The schedule for every match day has also been adjusted. Our colleagues are doing [matches] every weekend so they know what to do in the stadium. But in these first few weeks, we have to focus even more on each individual production because of the new operations.
“So this is a challenge [at this point] in the new season, to get these things working automatically. I’m sure in two months everything will be running smoothly and everyone will know what to do in which stadium for which package they’ve booked.”
Going remote
On the workflow for TVN each weekend as it runs between Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 matches for Sportcast, the OB firm uses the majority of its trucks, and is soon to start using a new truck that has been built specifically for remote production.
TVN has launched the first high grade remote broadcast OB truck in Germany. Although remote production does happen in Germany, it is not generally used for big league, high tier sports. TVN has created a remote truck workflow where the truck goes to site, signals from the location are sent to TVN’s technical centre in Hanover, and the gallery is situated at TVN’s new remote operation centre in Cologne.
The first time the truck was used was 13 September in a remote production for Bundesliga 2. The new remote workflow will be used for the second division primarily, with a move to do a Bundesliga game, “not happening the next five years to use the remote setup for the really big matches,” notes Berlin.
Berlin comments: “We have 10 trucks in total [at TVN] and for the Bundesliga and the second division, we use seven trucks per weekend, and in the future that will change to six trucks and one remote unit. We just built up the remote unit here and we will use it starting from sometime in September.”
He continues: “For the second division where we are working with a ten camera standard, and the unilateral packages are not that complex and large, it is a perfect setting [to work remotely],” he says. “The workflow is as follows: our venue OB van is placed at the stadium with the cameras, with the shading areas, and the signals will be transmitted to our technical centre here in Hanover at TVN, and the gallery with the director and the slomo operators is based in Cologne in the remote operation centre. It is really nice to see how it is working. We have less than 50 milliseconds delay, so it is really fast. It’s really quite cool.”
Facing the future
Berlin says that lower tier sports that do not require the highest broadcast standard are the only sporting areas currently covered with remote production in Germany at the moment: “In Germany we have some other companies who are doing remote solutions, but it’s a different version for small sports with a higher [latency] delay, and not in the most complex way, because of course there are some markets where you can do it more efficiently because the production is more simple with three or four cameras.”
He continues: “Our [remote production] project for the second division is the first one [in Germany] for high tier sports production. We are starting with remote productions, but to be honest, currently it is not really any more cost effective than doing it with [a regular] OB truck, but we do have less people on site, and it offers many advantages for the future.”
On the benefit for TVN and for its crew of being able to work remotely, Berlin adds: “Having seven or eight trucks on the street every weekend, of course a lot of people are working at the weekends for us. It is a good thing if we can offer working space here in Hanover; some colleagues like to be in the technical centre here for a remote production from nine to seven, and then go home without having to travel every weekend. So also for our employees remote offers another option for working.”
As to why TVN – which is one of the largest technical services providers in Germany – has only just now got into the remote production game, Berlin explains.
“Honestly in Germany one issue is the fibre topic, because fibre is less available in Germany compared to other European countries, both for private houses and also not for broadcast. And, of course, it is also a cost factor.”
Yet Berlin says that despite the lack of a strong business case for doing remote production for premier sports in Germany, it is still important for TVN to be taking this path.
He explains: “We are doing it because it will be the future. At the moment we are not doing it to earn more money, but we believe in it for coming years; it will happen and it will grow and become bigger, but for us it is really cool to take such a big step in this direction in the German market with such a professional project as the second division.”
Bells and whistles
Unlike in previous years, this year for the first time the DFL has changed its rights holder packages to make them more flexible for broadcasters. These changes have also encompassed the standard camera plans, where the most popular matches – now known as ‘tent pole’ matches across the first and second divisions – have a higher number of cameras allocated to them, and less popular games have fewer cameras.
Comments Berlin: “What the Bundesliga has done is to use less cameras for [less popular] matches and more cameras on the highlight matches, for the top matches [on a given] match day.
“It is a bit of a weird situation because over the last 20 or 30 years, the camera standards always increase and get bigger and bigger. This is the first time that for some matches, the camera standard gets smaller, but they are putting more cameras on the highlight matches, where we have more specialist cameras [such as] high speed Polecam’s, and high speed cine-style cameras, things like that.”
TVN recently worked as the technical services provider for the DFL on the SuperCup, where all the bells and whistles are thrown at the production in a flurry of innovation. Several of those innovations are now being used in the new Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 season, including a camera on a team bus on its way to the stadium for selected matches, as well as various new pitch positions for broadcasters.
Comments Berlin: “We had some innovation topics [at the SuperCup]. One is a camera in the bus of the home team, where we show the way from the hotel to the stadium. We do it with a LiveU in the bus, but we are only allowed to show the view out of the bus, not into the bus where the players are sitting. It’s the players’ view out of the bus, [over the bus driver’s shoulder] seeing the fans outside.
“This one is one of the new topics for the season for some of the highlight matches. And besides that, there are a lot of new positions for interviews,” continues Berlin. “The teams have to do interviews for bus arrival, in the cabin, and on the pitch after the match. Some of these positions are known from Champions League Final or big productions from Europa, but they are allowed now in the German Bundesliga. So that is an innovation for us, which is not technical of course, but which is a big difference for us when working or building up [a game’s] production.”
One technical innovation for the new Bundesliga season that TVN is supporting for the DFL and Sportcast is a first person view (FPV) drone. TVN is the largest drone supplier in the German market.
Comments Berlin: “[Drones are] one thing which are getting more and more important [in our productions]. We have an impressive drone department for large, heavy drones – we call them Live Copter – [which we used] for dynamic outside beautyshots in recent years, and it is totally accepted now. The next step is going into the stadiums with small drones. We have had some friendly matches in the last month where we [used small drones in stadiums] and two or three weeks ago we did it in Leipzig for Red Bull. They had a friendly match and we were flying with the FPV live drone during the match and for the walk in. We got nice pictures, and of course some new perspectives.”
TVN tried the in-stadium drone at a Bundesliga match on Friday 29 August for the first time.
