Goggles and athletes: NRK outlines how it will excite younger viewers with coverage of the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2025

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Monday, February 24, 2025 - 16:38
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SVG Europe caught up with Espen Hansen, NRK’s technical project manager for the International Ski Federation (FIS) Nordic World Ski Championships 2025, to find out how the production for host broadcaster Infront is innovating to offer more of what younger viewers want and expect to this biennial Nordic skiing event.

This year the Nordic World Ski Championships, being held in Trondheim, Norway from 26 February to 9 March, are about bringing the atmosphere and excitement – from the athletes themselves before and after they have competed at the Granåsen Arena, to the medal ceremonies in the centre of Trondheim – to viewers at home.

Before finalising the workflow for this production, NRK Sports carried out some research with young people in Norway as part of its planning for its domestic production. Hansen says the results have influenced not only the domestic production, but also the world feed.

He explains: “We started a survey at the project start to find out what young people thought about the cross country and ski jumping productions from Planica [the previous Championships were held in 2023 in Planica, Slovenia]. And as you know, they don’t watch linear TV; they watch Netflix, they watch clips, so the 50K cross country, it’s too long [for them]. They see the start and they see the finish that’s okay for them.

“We’ve got access to more athletes in more places, like in the warm-up area, in the lift, and everywhere. So we are going to have a lot of small cameras.”

“We are not going to produce this Championship purely for the young people, but we tried to find out what they thought about it, and one thing we found out was – especially at ski jumping – everyone wears goggles. Everyone has goggles and helmets and they look alike and they start at the top and they jump down. Everyone is repeating, repeating, repeating.

“So we have tried to find ways to get closer to the athletes without the goggles, without the helmet, so that’s an innovation that we have developed in cooperation with FIS,” continues Hansen.

“We’ve got access to more athletes in more places where the athletes are, like in the warm up area, in the lift, and everywhere. So we are going to have a lot of small cameras that we do with a LiveU 5G connection, so we can have a camera in the chair lift to the top, [and elsewhere]. Also the athletes are eager to present themselves; they know where the cameras are, so they also can wave to the camera, things like that.”

The Granåsen Arena, where the majority of the action will take place

NRK has set up a private 5G network with mobile operator, Telia, for the event, “so we know that even if the arena or venue is full of spectators that are going to do Snapchat or anything like that, then we have our own bandwidth to make sure these LiveU cameras are okay”.

Hansen continues on tapping into the personalities of the athletes: “We have also built a lounge in the athletes area where we have cameras – and they know we have cameras there – but there’s also a big screen TV there so they can sit there and follow teammates. So we hope to get some nice pictures with something else other than the helmet and the goggles.”

Capturing the atmosphere

Another way that NRK is planning to bring atmosphere and athlete reactions to all viewers, as well as the younger ones, is in the medal ceremonies, which will be held every evening in Trondheim City Square.

NRK is essentially managing three OBs, with the host production for the cross country and ski jumping, its domestic production, and also the Opening and medal ceremonies production. “Since we are the host producer for this event in cooperation with Infront, then we have one truck for cross country, which is NRK’s OB24 truck,” explains Hansen. “Then at the ski jumping, we have a rental truck from NEP Belgium, which we really rent from NEP Norway, but they have got us a truck from Belgium.

The medal ceremonies will be held every evening in Trondheim City Square

“Then we have the third OB van, which is in the medal plaza for the medal ceremonies.” The medal ceremonies are going larger this year than ever before, says Hansen: “Here we have a big square in the centre of Trondheim, which they plan to fill with 15,000 to 20,000 people, so this is an event [in itself]. So we are put more effort into that medal production than it was in Planica.”

The truck used for the medal ceremonies is also being used by NRK Sports for its national production evening show. Comments Hansen: “We do the host production [for the medal ceremonies] in one room [in the truck] and we do the NRK Sports production in the other room. They share a lot of cameras and everything like that. So it’s been very close planning also with the local organisers to get this whole [evening] event planned with concerts, with the medal awards, with the athletes, and the audience, to get that atmosphere. So we hope that all the people are coming there. But as we saw in 2011 in Oslo, it was packed; I think they had 120,000 people in the centre of Oslo.”

Up close and personal

For NRK Sports, rather than have a studio in the square as it has done in previous years, this year the goal is to get into the action and tap into the atmosphere more. Says Hansen: “A studio in the square is what we have been doing all the years before, but now we are trying to get a bit closer to the athletes and to the audience, so we are going to do a lot on stage between the medal ceremonies.

“NRK Sports’ presentation will become a part of the entertainment for the audience at the square. But we also have a roof studio nearby because maybe there’ll be a medal ceremony with no Norwegian medals – maybe! – and then it’s not that interesting for NRK Sports to transmit that medal ceremony, so then we can go out to that small rooftop studio.”

NRK Sports will also be producing content for ski jumping and cross country from the Granåsen Arena.

The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships will take place at the Granåsen Arena, Trondheim, Norway from 26 February to 9 March

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