France Télévisions has based itself at the IBC in Milan for the duration of both the Winter Olympics and the upcoming Paralympic Games. Inside its space within the IBC, it has constructed its main broadcast studio. Athletes and presenters from around Italy are able to be ‘teleported’ into the Milan studio from smaller greenscreen studios dotted around the country, giving viewers at home in France the impression of a packed sofa in Milan.
France TV’s output is going out on Télématin, the French breakfast television news show broadcast on France 2 every morning during the Games, then the programming runs all day between France 2, France 3, France 4, and a dedicated channel on its digital platform, france.tv. Each day ends with a roundup magazine-style show from 11.00pm to midnight, Jeux Olympiques, or JO Club!.
Pierre Martin, France Télévisions’ Winter Olympics team leader for Milano Cortina and senior production manager, comments from a sofa in the France Télévisions IBC space in Milan: “In the night, we have our magazine, JO Club!, Jeux Olympiques. It is a special magazine show with athlete guests. We had athletes this morning for Télématin, but the most important programme for us is the live in the night. It is the time to make a recap of the day with the medals and with the athletes, when they come back from the mountains and pass through Milano.”
The production, according to Martin, is a success. Halfway through the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, France Télévisions had achieved record-breaking viewership, reinforced by its multi-channel broadcast strategy and the public’s strong interest in French athletes.
The EBU started that at around the mid-point of the Games, 43 million viewers had watched at least one minute of Milano Cortina 2026 coverage on France Télévisions, which is 10 million more than at the same stage of both the Beijing 2022 and PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games, and the highest level recorded since 2006.
Since the start of the Games, viewers have watched more than three hours of coverage on average on France Télévisions, double the level recorded after six days of competition in 2022, reflecting the strength and scale of France Télévisions’ broadcast offering.
France Télévisions’ streaming platform, france.tv, has recorded 21 million video views for the Olympic Games to date, already surpassingthe total achieved across the entire duration of the 2022 and 2018 Winter Games.
Greenscreens and robots
Greenscreen studios with dedicated, synchronised remote camera robots have been deployed in four key locations in Italy: Livigno, Bormio, Anterselva and Predazzo. A major factor in the operational success at the Winter Games for the French broadcaster is the implementation of these sophisticated remote studios, using virtual production workflows.
France Télévisions is able to ‘beam’ athletes and presenters into its central studio in Milan. This hybrid model of real and virtual allows for a cohesive programme without requiring a massive physical presence at every distributed venue throughout the country.
The teleportation solution was developed through a collaboration between France Télévisions, Zero Density, Vidélio, and XD Motion. Says Martin: “We use Zero Density technology with Vidélio. We prepared with Vidélio to imagine and to develop [the concept for teleportation] with XD Motion. France Télévisions, XD Motion, and Vidélio worked a lot together to find and develop the solution, and that it works is really something. We are really happy about it.”
The backbone of this production is a network of identical robotic camera systems. France TV utilises Arcam 10 six-axis robotic arms, developed by XD Motion (now part of EVS), which are synchronised across all locations. When a camera moves in the Milan studio, the remote robot in the mountains mirrors that movement precisely, maintaining the illusion of a shared physical space.
Says Martin: “We made an agreement with the Olympic French Committee to have athletes after their races. We have a contract with each federation; the French federations for snowboard, alpine skiing, and so on. It is nice because we have some athletes here in the studio in Milano, and we have also – thanks to our greenscreens and our robot cameras – we have athletes and our talent in the mountains in the four different sites.”
Technological innovation has also extended to the viewer experience at home through the launch of France 2 UHD. The broadcaster is delivering events in native UHD with high dynamic range standards, including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, for the first time in European terrestrial live sports. Immersive audio options, such as Dolby Atmos, offer viewers a choice of mixing levels, including an ‘ambient only’ mode to experience the atmosphere of the venues without commentary.
Islands of people
Martin says the distances between the event locations is a challenge, but its teleportation greenscreen studios set up at the four major mountainous areas in the northern part of the country is working well. It has ENG crews all over, including at Livigno, Bormio, Cortina, Val di Fiemme, and Anterselva.
France Télévisions has experienced the vast distances between the Milano Cortina locations before, so Martin knew what to expect when staffing for the Games. He explains: “We had the chance to cover the World Championships in Cortina in 2021, and we knew that the valley is not so easy to connect to from Venice. Even if it only takes two hours, two hours during the Olympics with the snow and traffic is too much.”
On Milano Cortina, he says, “we have to imagine it like a lagoon with some islands on the lagoon – islands of people – and they can swim in the morning to the snowboard and in the afternoon to the alpine skiing”.
He notes: “We cover all the events and all the venues with commentary, with mixed zone journalists. It is really nice to share and to mix all the pictures. The challenge of these Games is to connect everybody and to connect people, to make all these different parts into one part of our programme, together. When people watch TV [at home], they never mind if we are in Cortina or Milano or Anterselva; we do our best to unify it all together into one place.”
France Télévisions is using LiveU’s in mixed zones with its six ENG crews, and also for the teleportation system to the studio in the IBC. “That works with internet connectivity, but we secure the four greenscreens by point-to-point fibre, but it also works with 5G.”
The teams use video conferencing to stay in touch each morning, making plans, sharing feedback, and preparing for the day ahead. Martin comments: “The first part of the day is to check all the issues or good facts, and also the audience figures; it is important to tell people that the audience is really good. It’s important, the positive and the negative. Everything makes our live coverage better.”
Italian base
France Télévisions made the decision to host its main studio in Italy and not in Paris as it decided it was best to be as near to the athletes as possible. Martin comments: “It didn’t make sense to instal our studio in Paris because all the Winter Games and winter athletes are in Italy. In Paris, we would have nobody. We made that in the past for Vancouver. We had our studio in Paris and all the teams in Vancouver. In Paris, we spoke about show business and singers, but never about sports.”
He adds that while Cortina is iconic and Livigno is a base for many sports, the cost of setting up a main studio in those locations, including the connectivity costs and accommodating members of staff in those areas, were prohibitive. That made Milan, where the broadcaster already had space inside the IBC, the sensible and cost effective option.
Martin says: “Having our studio in the same place as the office costs less. We didn’t book a studio in Duomo Plaza [in Milan] nor in Cortina, because in Cortina it was very expensive for connectivity. Two years before, the boss of OBS said to me, “Pierre, there will be no connectivity in the mountains, so you can be sure that we cannot provide connectivity to everybody”. So it was realistic to have our base here with all the venues and all the feeds here to reduce the cost and have the facility to broadcast as well.”
On the workflow for the Olympics, Martin says: “Now we are working remotely with Paris. We have the studio here and the switching is here. Everything from OBS is easy because OBS is just upstairs [at the IBC]. We have all our pictures and sound, and we do the switching here to send to Paris. Paris is the main corridor for France 2, France 3, and the digital channel. We broadcast from Paris, but the switching is here.”
Martin continues: “We do greenscreens to connect the mountains. We did the same in Beijing and Tokyo, but for Pascal Golomer, the chief of the journalists [deputy director of sports at France Télévisions, in charge of editorial], it makes sense to have some people in person [on location], even if we are only able to connect with teleportation. For us, it makes sense. We can also remote the studios [from the mountainous locations] to Paris, but the fact of being on site in 2026, for us, for the French, it is important to mix virtual and [real life] presence.”
Martin concludes: “Now the challenge is to maintain this and to be good until the end. Thanks to the teleportation, everyone is happy for that, and it was relayed in a lot of countries. A lot of people want to see what the process is.”
Paralympics next up….
For the Paralympic Games, which has less sports than the Olympic Games, France Télévisions is changing its greenscreen studios toa new one in Cortina, and the one that is currently in Val di Fiemme.
Martin adds on the Paralympic workflow: “We will keep the same setup. We will change and adapt the robots and the greenscreens in the mountains. We dismantle Anterselva and we will bring all the materials to Cortina. But in Cortina, we already have got our space and people working for the Olympics; it’s all arranged.”
Says Martin: “We broadcast the Paralympic Games as equal to the Olympic Games. The only thing that changes is that there are only six disciplines, so we have to adjust and adapt, but the main edit room will be here at the IBC.
“For the Paralympics, we are dismantling Paris and we will be in autonomy here [at the IBC] thanks to a video mixer and an audio mixer. We have the stage and the studio here [at the IBC]; it is very efficient like that,” concludes Martin.
