Paris 2024: BBC Sport on its remote production workflow for the Summer Games
BBC Sport has two main bases in Paris; one studio at Trocadero in the OBS broadcaster studio block overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and a small space at the IBC
With the Summer Olympic Games getting underway this weekend, broadcasters around the world are poised and ready to bring all the action back to their home countries. BBC Sport is splitting its production for the Games between its headquarters in Salford, England, and Paris, using a remote production workflow as it has for the past several Summer and Winter Olympics.
BBC Sport has two main bases in Paris; one studio at Trocadero in the OBS broadcaster studio block overlooking the Eiffel Tower, and a small space at the IBC.
The main technical innovation for the broadcaster will be at its studio. BBC Sport’s Olympic studio is building on the technologies used at its Euro 2024 studio’s both inside and outside at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. It will make use of extended reality (XR), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and a green screen, powered and controlled respectively by Unreal Engine and Vizrt from Salford.
Says BBC Sport’s head of major events and general sport, Ron Chakraborty: “There’s lots of lovely little innovations around the studio, with maps and separate presentation areas, and we’re just waiting very excitedly to see how it all glues together. In Tokyo we had that pagoda which went down really well and just had a really nice feeling of being there, and then our football colleagues have set the bar very high with their Berlin studio, which has gone down very well. So we’re hoping to meet the challenge with our Paris one.”
Says BBC Sport’s Ron Chakraborty: “There’s lots of lovely little innovations around the studio, with maps and separate presentation areas, and we’re just waiting very excitedly to see how it all glues together”
From Paris…
Timeline TV is supporting BBC Sport on the ground in Paris with a small OB setup for the athletics at Stade de France. It is also delivering the temporary Olympic FTA in Salford, in partnership with BBC Engineering Operations.
Says Chakraborty: “For the athletics, we’ve got a presentation platform there. We’ve also got some individual cameras so we can effectively augment the coverage; say you’ve got something like the heptathlon with Katarina Johnson-Thompson and we wanted to feature her a little bit more, we’ve got our own cameras on her. Similarly, when you’ve got the men’s or women’s hundred metres, you can pick out the GB athletes. Same thing with distance races. So it’s a smaller operation for that basically.”
“For the Olympics, the volume of it – the volume of sport and the amount of lines you’ve got to send back, and the mixing of commentary with the pictures – that’s a little bit more of a challenge. But as a result of our base in Salford, we’re sending fewer people [to Paris] overall”
The MOD24 consortium – Multilink Broadcast, Origin, Dega Broadcast – is BBC Sport’s systems integrator across the IBC, studio and off-site production office. BT Media and Broadcast is providing international connectivity and also connectivity between the studio and the IBC. Meanwhile B360 is the lighting contractor, working not only at studio but also the BBC Sport announce platforms.
Meanwhile on people, in Paris there will be skeleton technical crews, ENG crews, as well as commentators, presenters and reporters. There will also be news teams from across the UK’s regional offices covering the action.
Explains Chakraborty: “In terms of presenters and commentators, it’s about the same [as previous Games] to be honest. I think for Paris there’s probably a greater presence for our nations and regions, so BBC Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland news will send slightly bigger teams because it’s easier for them to get there. I think there’s probably more of them than there were for Tokyo or Rio, for example.”
The broadcaster is sending commentators for around 15 sports to Paris. There will be 12 BBC Sport crews staffing mixed zones for athlete reactions, and also crews for news from BBC nations and regions, plus digital teams, will be out there as well.
To Salford…
BBC Sport has based all its galleries and post production in Salford. Notes Chakraborty: “It’s one of those learnings from COVID; everyone’s far more confident with remote production these days, but we have done it before for Commonwealth Games’ and Winter Olympics’ where we’ve always done those events remotely, so we’re used to it.
“For the Olympics, the volume of it – the volume of sport and the amount of lines you’ve got to send back, and the mixing of commentary with the pictures – that’s a little bit more of a challenge,” he continues. “But as a result of our base in Salford, we’re sending fewer people [to Paris] overall.”
BBC Sport has two production galleries in Salford. Says Chakraborty: “When we did Tokyo, both post production areas – the fast turnaround VT areas – were in the same room and it was pretty noisy and quite cramped as well. So [for Paris] there’s a little area on the ground floor that we’ve turned into a second fast turnaround area with various LSMs and turnaround staff for that.”
Watch all the Olympic Team GB action live on BBC One, iPlayer and the Red Button from 26 July 2024