Inside Italy’s AGR
If you get to their main webpage www.cnrmedia.com/ and write “sport” in the research field you get 2570 results in a fraction of a second! To give an idea of CNR’s involvement in sports let’s mention just a few topics: Global Games in Genoa, The 59° Rolex Cup, Milan-Genoa match, Milan winning the “Scudetto”, Roma with Luis Enrique, just a sign missing, Italy tonight, friendly match with Ireland and Trap.., Balotelli again in troubles, Maradona back on the bench, Maradona training again, Champions League, historical Inter in Monaco, Milan Italian champion…
AGR, Journalistic TV Services is well known in Italy also for this content factory profile, from the headquarters in Milan, and is appreciated for its video productions concerning sports, TV formats, multimedia products, adverts, TV bulletins, as well as its radio output. For the radio all content is created here being also the owner of CNR syndication.
In July 2011 AGR moved to the tenth floor of the Viale Richard Tower in Milan. This 450m2 area includes all radio production desks, an area totally devoted to TV and video production based on eight editing suites, motion graphics, finishing, post production, and also contains an area devoted to the commercial staff.
The whole area underwent a heavy repurposing and all the environment was devoted to the new mission by a specialized company from Lissone known as S.M. by Pino Stillitano, which is already well known in this industry for several appreciated installations through many market segments, from radio-TV production centres, to public and private buildings, recording studios and in general in any situation in which it was necessary a double handling of acoustic correction and sound-proofing, mixing both functionality and aesthetics.
Within CNR, the S.M. created the whole sound-proofing and acoustic corrections fro the many segments of the agency plus a new area and a general renewal of all studios. Every area is physically separated from the other and each has a peculiar acoustic behaviour, while it also hosts a meeting room with high aesthetic impact completely surrounded by crystal walls facing the commercial offices.
The whole technological infrastructure has been overhauled in this huge project, from air-conditioning to a compete re-make of the cabled network in cat.6, as well as such non-broadcast infrastructure such as the electrical plant and fire alarm system.
As often happens in such events the time factor was essential actually the whole operation was approved “on paper” and only after one month all work had to be completed.
In this production tower are housed a radio production studio, six small 2×2 suites in which the TV-radio reporter prepares the whole article and audio comment by himself. The whole production workflow is based on a technological proprietary platform developed internally and this GCG )Gestione Contenuti Giornalistic), allows for the acquiring, ingesting, editing and managing of all contents, legalization, and final approval just before web distribution in every audio and video format as required.
As Flavio Ferrario, production responsible for AGR, stresses: “AGR is actually considered a rare example in Italy where technological and editorial developments are in sync in order to apply tech innovations in the process of creation and of multimedia content.”
All sixteen sports and journalistic multimedia desks are placed in the main open space of the editorial office; four of which are especially designated for video editing and finishing. Some other ten editing desks are equipped with non linear editing software on both Mac and PC.