Sports TV Awards 2021 Finalist: Sky Group Formula 1 Coverage by Sky Sports

Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia, and Sky UK led the way on collaborative international remote-production for Formula 1

Credit: Sky Sports (2021)

The COVID-19 pandemic tore across European sport and provided a huge number of challenges for broadcasters, but also a great deal of opportunity for Sky’s European territories to collaborate in ways they hadn’t done before, earning them a place on the SVG Europe Sports TV Awards 2021 shortlist for ‘Outstanding Production Achievement – Event.’

Particularly strong was the collaboration between Sky Deutschland, Sky Italia, and Sky UK that saw technical infrastructure sharing, resource sharing, content sharing, and support across the three territories becoming the new normal on Formula 1 cover. With the power of the group and support from NEP and Tata, Sky Sports were also able to generate maximum output through sharing features, interviews, and even whole shows from Sky UK. In addition to that, they were also able to share facilities (SkyPad) and talent (Nico Rosberg) on-site in Germany and Italy.

Sky Deutschland laid a lot of the groundwork for this shift to collaborate international remote-production, having already moved to a remote model in 2018 for sustainability reasons. This meant that the F1 production was ready to go when the pandemic hit. Coverage was produced from a base in Munich and then paired with a small production unit on-site, with collaboration from the UK Osterley site, and camera feeds from UK, Germany, and Italy.

The winners of the SVG Europe Sports TV Awards 2021, sponsored by Canon, will be announced on Thursday 28 October at Chelsea F.C. during the Sport Production & Technology Summit 2021. Registration for both events is now open to members and sponsors here.