Getting Games Ready

Being at the cutting edge of innovation in sports coverage, delivering thousands of hours of content, expanding work in the cloud, and planning years in advance — all part of the routine for the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

In the next episode of the Making the Media podcast, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with Trevor Piling from OBS about the work of Olympic Channel News, the mammoth task of setting up for a games, and producing engaging stories for audiences not normally regarded as sports fans.

Based in Madrid, Trevor tells the podcast, “The Olympic audience is different than your typical sports broadcast audience, in that oftentimes we come at it from thinking that approximately 80% of our viewers are not diehard sports fans, and therefore we need to adjust our storytelling to help those fans who are not normally consumers of sport.”

Innovation in how the events are covered is central to the ethos of OBS, with a constant look to the future.

“We are mandated to be looking for new technologies, to have our eye on what's happening now, and also an eye to what's happening in a couple of years from now, so that ideally we launch some of these new technologies at games time. And, you know, it's certainly one of the exciting things about being able to work for OBS is this desire to continue to enhance the quality and to bring more each time to the rights holders.”

Trevor adds that it is critical to convey the emotion of the games to the audience at home, “The Olympics are serious, but they're also a lot of fun and trying to get that emotion conveyed through whatever technology will take us to a consumer. We want them to feel something from watching the content.”

Find out more on the next episode of the podcast, available on all major podcast platforms on Monday, May 30.

Listen and subscribe to making the media

More Like This

 

Making the Media S2E10 – The Sky’s the Limit

What does the sports broadcasting industry need to do to capitalize on technical innovation?
Read more