NEP Visions, Cloudbass acquire Arqiva OB fleet

The outside broadcast fleet of uplink and transmission specialist Arqiva has been divided between OB facilities companies NEP Visions and Cloudbass. As reported by SVG Europe during August, Arqiva had decided to move out of the OB arena after an internal strategic review decided the market was “growth limited”.

Only the Arqiva trucks, including four HD units, were put up for sale as many of the broadcast contracts, some of which involved sport, had either expired or been lost. Most of the operational staff used by Arqiva OBs were freelance, while the division’s commercial director, Simon Bowler, joined SIS LIVE as sales director for outside broadcast business in October. (An interview with Bowler about his new position will appear on SVG Europe in the near future.)

Arqiva’s original intention had been to sell the OB fleet as a single lot. Instead, the vehicles have been split between two of Arqiva OB’s competitors.

NEP Visions, which works on English Premier League football coverage for Sky Sports among other sport productions, has bought two big HD scanners, each offering facilities for 24 Sony cameras and 5.1 surround sound mixing. Both feature Sony MVS8000 switchers, Calrec Alpha audio consoles, NVision routers and RTS communication systems.

Brian Clark, commercial and technical projects director for NEP Visions Ltd, commented that the trucks would work from the company’s base in London and were being modified before going into operation “as soon as possible to support our existing contracts and offer flexibility on other potential contracts in the future”. He added: “This is an exciting opportunity for the UK operations of the NEP Group and helps facilitate and accelerate our future plans.”

Cloudbass was contacted several times for comment and details on what Arqiva equipment it acquired but at the time of going to press there had been no response.