Technical services provider TV Skyline is once again back at full throttle for the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), a German sports car racing series sanctioned by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (ADAC) that races a modified version of Group GT3 grand touring cars.
The DTM 2026 season opener will take place at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria, from 24 to 26 April. This race is TV Skyline’s first as host broadcaster of the event since 2022, when DTM was sold by its then owner, ITR, to ADAC, which had its own OB provider under contract. That contract ended with the last season of DTM and TV Skyline was given the host broadcast contract.
This season, TV Skyline is bringing more cameras, a 1080p production, remote streaming operations and more to the host broadcast of the DTM.
Camera additions
Over eight races this season – six of which are in Germany, plus one in Austria and one in the Netherlands – TV Skyline is using a basic camera and technical setup, based on 25 broadcast cameras to capture the track itself. However, each track is unique so additional cameras are used where needed to ensure viewers do not miss any of the action, including wireless cameras in the pit lane and in the paddock.
“The wireless cameras, which are mostly running down the pit lane and in the paddock, where we have six cameras this year, is slightly different,” says Julian Reeh, TV Skyline sales manager. “One of those six cameras is a high speed wireless camera, and something new this year is that we also changed two of those six wireless cameras to cinematic cameras.”
He adds on the cinematic camera addition: “I think it’s not an innovation anymore to use cinematic – it’s getting more and more common in sports – but we also want to join this trend to improve the images we get, which we think that this will be a good thing for the look and feel of the broadcast.”
The smaller cinematic cameras will be worn by camera operators on a gimbal, allowing them to move with more agility to get closer to the story and to follow the details with more accuracy.
Also TV Skyline is using its mechanic camera, which is a wireless body camera worn by one operator who is also a mechanic for one of the teams. It is used during a pit stop tyre change, where they are able to capture exciting angles for the hoist broadcast, says Reeh.
“This was included into the DTM last year and we will now continue to use it because the pictures you get are very intense; you see like the POV of the mechanics, you see the car arriving, then he grabs like the tyre, takes the tyre off the car, someone puts on a new one, he’s using all the tools and so on, and the car leaves. The images are just great.”
Another addition this season is onboard cameras, which over the course of this season will be expanded from a starting point of eight live cameras, through to all cars equipped with multiple live onboards by the end of the season. The onboard cameras are using a 5G network to transmit, and TV Skyline will explain more about the system and its partners for the innovation later in the season.
Reeh states: “We have the onboard cameras, which is new this year on DTM. At the start of this season in Spielberg we are planning to have eight race cars in the DTM equipped with an onboard camera. Last year there were only six cameras [on cars] and our goal for the season is that – and let’s see if we can achieve it! – that by the last race, which will take place in October in Hockenheim, every race car in DTM will have at least one onboard camera, so we will have over 20 cars and every one equipped with an onboard live camera.”
Technical trucks
The technical setup for the DTM is using half the number of trucks this year, as TV Skyline brings in the big guns in the form of its OB11 and G10 vans. Says Reeh: “Compared to last season we are doing the host broadcasting in a much more efficient way than it was done last year and the time before. We’re able to deliver the same technical setup with only half the number trucks in the TV compound compared to last year. This is mainly due to our combination of OB11 and G10.“
He adds: “In general, the DTM is quite a big production, technical-wise, but also in terms of the crew, we need a lot of working places inside the OB vans for the different departments. We have at least like three different galleries, for example. We have the world feed, we have the moderated feed, which is an international feed. We have like the Fantifier, which is like the feed produced for all the big screens on the racetrack. And then we also have feed for the EVS and replay operators and so on and so on. And that’s why in the past the OB broadcaster needed to bring quite a lot of OB trucks on site to fit all those people inside.
“The good thing with our setup is due to the combination of our OB11 and the G10, we are able to host quite a lot of people inside, but do it with only two trucks in the first place.”
Each truck is expansive, and also OB11 does not have any technical room inside; all the technical equipment, from switchers and like mainframes for the vision mixer, are hosted inside the tender truck.
Adds Reeh: “The back of the tender truck is the storage area for all the cameras and so on, and the front of the tender truck is an engineering room where all the technical equipment is running. OB11 is connected via fibre cables to the tender truck and this saves us room in the OB11 because like all the technical equipment is now inside the tender truck. And the second thing is the G10 is no regular OB van. It is a gallery vehicle or direction truck, so the G10 is connected to OB11 to make additional working spaces for the director or EVS operators also.”
Modernised production
DTM is also changing from 1080i to 1080p this season. Comments Reeh: “Well, we said that we just want to go with the times. I think to produce it in 1080i is not very modern, especially due to the circumstances that the DTM is also streaming a lot of their products and streaming is also all the time done in progressive. And that’s the reason why we said the DTM, if we produce it, it has to be a 3G production.
“For us it is almost like no change. The OBs are capable of doing both, so it is more or less just like a click or a switch and then we’re doing it in 3G. In the details, it is not that easy because all the stakeholders now need to adapt if they, for example, are bringing their graphics to the production and so on.”
The streaming aspects of the production for DTM are also being done remotely this season for the first time, based at TV Skyline’s base in Mainz near Frankfurt.
Notes Reeh: “In the past, all the streaming was done onsite with the streaming operators with all their technical equipment sitting like in the OB van or somewhere else in the TV compound. What we now do is we are just sending a few signals from the racetrack to our company in Mainz, and from this point on to a central point from which we do all the streaming around the world.”
He adds at this point there is still a safety SNG vehicle on site, but that, “I can imagine that in the near future that we will get rid of the SNG and only do the streaming, but for the moment it is, let’s call it hybrid, where we have both”.
Additionally, social media clipping has been moved off site as well. Says Reeh: “This was most of the time also done on site and it will now be done remotely also. What we are doing here is for the streaming, we’ve got all the signals in Mainz and we will stream those signals to Hamburg. In Hamburg, the company which has done the social media content production in the past are sitting at their company base and not at the racetrack anymore. They are producing all the social media content from there.”
Having these operators off site is saving the production money in terms of travel and accommodation. Notes Reeh: “We are taking a look at like every department, every section of the DTM, to see if we can do something remotely, yes or no.”
The 2026 DTM season opener at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria can be watched live across Europe via ServusTV, the official DTM YouTube channel, and Red Bull TV. Motorvision TV provides highlights.
