IBC2015 Q&A: ADI’s Geraint Williams and Oliver Brindley

ADI may not be on the IBC2015 exhibit floor, but the company will have a presence in Amsterdam: CEO Geraint Williams will be a conference presenter. He and Marketing Manager Oliver Brindley discuss the company’s efforts in helping broadcasters deliver sports content and its contributions to sports production.

Geraint Williams, CEO, ADI

What will ADI be up to this year at IBC, and how can attendees learn more about ADI at the show?
Brindley: Firstly, whilst we’re not exhibiting, we will be taking an active role at this year’s IBC, and Geraint Williams is one of the presentation speakers on Adobe’s stand. Geraint will be talking about the ways in which ADI are integrating Adobe Anywhere into our workflow across our Live Venue broadcast fibre network and how it’s being used by leading broadcasters to deliver sports content to fans in a much quicker and more cost-effective way.

Oliver Brindley, marketing manager, ADI

Specifically, he’ll be looking at the impact the workflow has had in enabling Football League highlights to move from a 23:30 timeslot to 21:00 this season and helping the league reach a far wider audience each weekend. You can catch the presentation on Friday at 15:30 or Saturday 12:30 and 16:00.

Can you name a few key events or projects ADI has contributed to within the sports-production industry in recent months?
Brindley: It’s been quite busy over the last few months as we’ve (a) invested heavily in connectivity into our Live Venue Sports Hub and (b) connected a number of new venues, and, from the start of this season, we are delivering Football League One and Two matches over the network, in addition to the contract we already held with the Football League for championship matches.

Williams: As a completely independent and privately owned British company, we’re able to offer an agile service to our customers that sets us apart from our competitors. In the rapidly changing landscape of rights and digital media, it’s important to have a partner that can quickly react to market needs, and I think that’s a significant factor that makes ADI an attractive option to the major broadcasters and federations we count as customers.

Can you expound on the investment in your Live Venue network? How will this investment benefit sports-content owners?
Brindley: Primary news is the investment we’ve made into our connectivity for the Live Venue network, which has meant a 3-km dig along busy roads to provide ourselves with direct Internet connection into another point of presence, giving additional resilience to our network. The £250,000 investment allows us access to a vast amount of bandwidth to reflect the ever increasing needs that our sports-federation, league, and broadcaster customers have for data and video transfer.

The connectivity marks significant additional investment to our Live Venue network, which connects over 100 venues, including every stadium in the Premier League and Football League, and major broadcasters, including Sky, IMG, and ITN. ADI hold contracts with both Premier League Productions and the Football League to deliver a host of live and bilateral feeds to global audiences, making ADI the first company to build a truly viable alternative to the BT network in British football.

We’re growing the Live Venue network at a rapid pace: this autumn has seen the expansion to include every stadium in Football League One and Two, in turn revolutionising the workflow and immediacy of delivery of content to rightsholders and fans. It was important to us that we undertook this as an autonomous project without working with a telco provider in order for us to continue to control our own destiny and offer a flexible, dependable, and independent service.

Significantly, we offer a completely agnostic service to federations and leagues. As a completely independent company without any association with rightsholders, broadcasters, or betting organisations, ADI offer a service that has no potential conflicts of interest for rightsholders and federations looking to broadcast and monetise their content.