In Broadcast - November 2012 - 72

I N T E R N A T I O N A L

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WWW.INBROADCAST.COM | ISSUE 14 - NOV/DEC 2012

InSTUDIO

Snell Drives 24-Hour Sky Sports News High-Deﬁnition Channel
Snell’s Kahuna 360 video switcher is driving production for Sky Sport News HD, the ﬁrst 24-hour sports news channel to serve viewers in Germany and Austria. The Kahuna 360 is driven by a studio automation solution from Mosart, and it joins iNEWS, Avid Interplay, and Vizrt systems to provide a complete workflow for switching and playout of multi-format video and graphics sources to air. Sky Sport News HD is a production of Sky Deutschland Fernsehen GmbH and is available to Sky subscribers in Germany and Austria as part of the satellite provider’s Sky Welt package. Snell partner Wellen + Nöthen GmbH provided systems integration for the Kahuna 360 installation. Kahuna 360 features up to six mix effects (M/E), four of which are currently in use by the Sky Sport 72 News HD production. The reserve power provides ample room for growth as the new channel expands. “In our highly complex production environment, Kahuna 360 is being used in a rather unconventional way. Since it’s so closely integrated with our automation systems, the switcher is able to deliver fully automated playout without anyone having to touch the console,” said Francesco Donato, Vice President of Broadcast Operations for Sky Deutschland. “Furthermore, thanks to the switcher’s user-friendly graphical interface, Kahuna 360 makes it very easy to produce sophisticated effects to wow our viewing audience. Plus, Kahuna is the only switcher to truly enable multi-format switching through FormatFusion3, which is critical to our ability to handle mixed-format inputs and outputs.” Sky Sport News HD is a real-time, graphics-intense channel that relies on a highly automated editorial and production environment that uses templates to feed the rundown of the news bulletin; therefore, the Kahuna 360’s capacity to manage several key layers was a large selling point for Sky Deutschland. With the ability to control up to seven concurrent graphics presentations in a single M/E and four channels of comprehensive and integrated 3D DVE effects, the Kahuna 360 gives Sky Sport News HD the ability to deliver high-powered, multi-level graphics presentations with each broadcast. In addition, the Kahuna 360’s extensive internal clip store enables the broadcaster to play out clips directly from the switcher, without having to rely on external devices. In addition, Sky Sport News HD has made use of the switcher’s versatile Make M/E technology,

Snell Kahuna 360 compact production switcher offers concurrent multi-format operation

which enables operators to create tailor-made M/Es by selecting inputs, keyers, stores, DVS, and outputs. The Make M/E technology gives the network unmatched ﬂexibility when sharing resources in the mainframe and making the rest of the content pool available for other programmes. ■

InFORM

What Funding Crisis? Don’t Believe The Hype…
Small but ambitious TV ﬁrms can still get funding for expansion in these times of austerity. They just need to look at alternative sources, argues Paul Robson of broadcast leasing specialists Medialease…
Although we don’t like to admit it, the TV industry, for all of its grandeur and its glamour, is actually quite small. Certainly not in terms of inﬂuence but when it comes to business we’re tiny when compared to goliath industries like IT. Even with the rise of the ‘Super Indie’ and the consolidation of the postproduction market, most television companies are still SMEs (Small to Medium Sized Enterprises), ﬁrms with 250 staff or less and turnovers of no more than £50million. As a consequence, when a survey by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) ﬁnds that small UK firms are struggling to r a i s e the m o n e y they need in order to expand, I get very interested. If you haven’t seen it, let me ﬁll you in. Apparently, half of the businesses surveyed wanted to expand but a whopping 42% of those that applied for a loan said they were turned down. At the same time, the government business minister suggested that “many promising growing companies can’t get the loans they need to expand on reasonable terms”. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Bank of England figures from October revealed that overall business lending was down £2.2 billion in the year to August with smaller players continuing to report an inability to obtain credit. It doesn’t make for good reading. Without access to credit (and at a decent interest rate) how can small but ambitious T V firms expand? Well, generally speaking, they can’t. Except that it is simply not the case. I know from personal experience that it is possible to get ﬁnance, even in a volatile, seasonal and highly internationalised market like television that is geared towards high-cost and rapidly outdated equipment. Here is the truth: Small media companies can get ﬁnance and on reasonable terms. Unfortunately, it is a much more difﬁcult journey than it was a few years ago. Banks are inﬁnitely more cautious (with good reason) and a lot more prescriptive when underwriting a loan. But ﬁ nance is deﬁ nitely available. It’s just that you have to look for alternative funders.
Paul Robson

I personally provide underwriting information to a wide number of funders that are actively looking to ﬁnd safe business in media. And many of them are not banks. If the applicant is viable then there is a deal to be done and credit to be had. As a small industry, television deﬁnitely punches above its weight. But if we are to continue to grow and expand then entrepreneurial and innovative companies need the means to do so. And this generally comes down to hard cash. Which is deﬁnitely out there. You just have to look beyond the banks.
Paul Robson is the Managing Director of Medialease, a specialist finance company providing asset funding and finance solutions to the broadcast television and ﬁlm industries.

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In Broadcast - November 2012

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