In Broadcast - July/August 2011 - 22

Outside Broadcasters Feel The Pinch
By Adrian Pennington
Royal Wedding for BBC (Courtesy Arena TV)

With no big sporting event to dominate the outside broadcast agenda this year, strategists at Europe’s OB firms are busy planning for some serious activity in 2012 including the UEFA European Championships (Poland and Ukraine) and of course the London Games. That’s not to say that 2011 hasn’t had its fair share of interest. The Royal Wedding provided an unusual spike where for just a few days large swathes of the UK’s OB armoury was corralled in Green Park supplying the host ITN, Sky and BBC HD broadcast as well as numerous international broadcasters. NEP Visions landed the plum role of exclusively covering the royal wedding ceremony from inside Westminster Abbey for the host broadcast, with SIS LIVE claiming to supply more facilities than any other. It supplied eight OB units, a specialist sound truck, 13 uplink units and an array of RF communications including 13 radio cameras. Most of its 40 satellite uplink trucks were contracted for clients including TV2DK, NBC News, Dome Productions and France Televisions. “It was a massive project with lots of negotiation between lots of stakeholders including the palace, the police, Westminster Abbey, the DCMS and other broadcasters,” says ITN Special Projects Editor, Emma

Hoskyns. “No one outside broadcaster could possibly manage the scale of this event in isolation so at the outset we all had to have a clear idea about who would manage which aspect for the pool and which facilities would supply which technical aspect.” Over 150 OB cameras supplied by domestic OB firms were contracted to play some part. There were originally intended to be some 40 cameras but according to a source up to 15 small cameras had to be removed at the last minute because their line of sight was obscured by the trees which lined the aisle and were apparently a last minute dressing.

2012 countdown
Contracts with host broadcaster Olympic Broadcast Services (OBS) to supply the London Games were agreed a year ago, with Arena and SIS Live bagging some of the 64 trucks required. Arena MD Richard Yeowart says he needs 180 cameras plus accessories like EVS machines to prepare for the two-week event and the Paralympics that follows and has doubled the firm’s inventory this year. “It won’t be possible to hire that much equipment over that period, and in

Aviva Rugby for ESPN (Courtesy Arena TV)

any case it would be expensive to do so, so we’re gradually increasing our ownership of kit ahead of time,” he says. Although not party to the OBS contract, Visions intend to maximize opportunities around the Olympics having signed a deal with a major US broadcaster. There are also a number of music and other ad-hoc events it is looking to get involved in in the run-up to the Games, which are likely to dilute the market further and hike rates up. OBS contractually prevents suppliers from talking in detail about its plans but SIS Live revealed that ten of its trucks are booked during the 2012 Games, some for the host. Parent group SIS will also open facilities near Old Street for nonrights holding broadcasters during the games. “We have a vast range of services to offer including playout, teleport and transmission control room, ENG and SNG hire,” says SIS Live’s MD David Meynall. The firm is able to do this as a result of shifting its London operations to MediaCityUK and marks another business departure for SIS hard on the heels of its host broadcast of the XIX Commonwealth Games. For SIS, the early part of 2011 was a period of consolidation as it continued to bed-in the acquired businesses of 021 and Dales. Two new HD trucks have the hit road in part catering for a fresh contract to supply ESPN’s HD coverage of 23 English Premier League matches, 30 Scottish Premier League matches and live England U21 international games. “Since OB work is typically seasonal and also concentrated on weekends we’re trying to build business throughout the year and week,” adds Meynall. This might be achieved by covering more horse races for SIS shareholders Ladbrokes, William Hill, Tote and the Racecourse Association. Sharing the contract for ESPN’s UK sport coverage is Arena, in its case 45 Guinness Premiership Rugby matches. It also picked up 30 Champions League and England home and away soccer internationals for ITV, and the BBC’s Springwatch. The company launched a £1.7m HD vehicle earlier this year, yet even this investment won’t be sufficient.

“We’re only able to quote on 50-60% of enquiries because we don’t have the capacity,” says Yeowart. “We are fully committed next year with only 10% spare capacity to sell.” Arena’s turnover for 2010-11 was up £2.7m reaching £18m. “We aim for a respectable 7% profit margin before tax,” Yeowart adds. “We understand the whole sector is in economic difficulty but there’s a limit to how much you can cut back since you have to continue to grow the business.”

Rate squeeze
The folding of 021 into SIS and NEP Visions’ purchase of Barcud’s Omni TV (following parent company Barcud Derwen’s collapse) has further consolidated a sector which in the UK is controlled by just five main firms. “Just because you have contract work doesn’t mean you can rest on your laurels,” says Steve Jenkins, MD, NEP Visions. “You have to invest over the three to five year contract period so that when it comes up for renewal your facilities are in top shape to regain the business. Those companies that don’t have volume and long terms contracts must be concerned for the future. You have to volume to make investment.” That said Jenkins agrees that it’s his engineering staff not equipment that wins tenders. “The file sharing and signal complexity of modern OB workflows means you need a few wizards to pilot it,” he says. “Part of the frustration is that while budgets are crushed it’s hard to put money back into the business to train the next generation of engineers, which is what makes any company a success.” “Competition is aggressive,” agrees CTV general manager Adam Berger. “Generally everybody has the same sort of facilities – you can walk into any OB truck and the equipment from sound mixers to monitors will be the same. The truck layout may be different but contract wins come down to the personnel and to price. With everything else equal, it would be the cheapest that wins.” There’s still high demand for OBs, with more being done than ever
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of In Broadcast - July/August 2011