Broadcast Tech Talks

Cara Kotschy, the former managing director of leading post-production house Fifty Fifty talks to Broadcast Tech editor Jake Bickerton about her decision to quit her role last year and how she’s been busy creating a new model for the post-production house of the future. Kotschy was only 28-years old when she became MD of current Broadcast Post-Production House of the Year, Fifty Fifty, and spent a decade in the role before she stepped down, to the surprise of the post-production community. Following a number of consultancy roles, Kotschy has spent her time devising a new type of post-production facility, which is dedicated to becoming best-of-breeds in a specific niche service, offers fully flexible working, recruits a diverse workforce from all areas of the community, and is based on a co-operative business model. She explains her vision and her timescales for rolling out her new take on the post-production facility during this enlightening episode of the Broadcast Tech Talks podcast series.

Podcast with Jet Omoshebi, senior colourist at Goldcrest and Natascha Cadle, co-founder, Envy for IWD 2022. Omoshebi and Cadle talk about gender representation in the different areas of the post-production industry, to mark International Women’s Day 2022. The podcast discusses what can and is being done to encourage more women to pursue careers in grading, picture and audio editing, VFX, engineering roles etc within post-production. Omoshebi and Cadle also talk about whether being a woman in a fairly male-dominated industry has ever held them back at all during their career to date, and they offer their advice to young women who might want to pursue a career in post-production.

BT Sport COO, Jamie Hindhaugh and BT Sport director of mobile strategy, Matt Stagg talk to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the broadcaster's Innovate 21 competition.

Innovate 21 is the latest in a series of large-scale competitions run by BT Sport seeking ideas for forward-thinking new sports broadcast experiences. The previous incarnations of Innovate have resulted in BT Sport teaming up with two products – Sceenic (which won the 2018 BT Infinity Lab competition), and Seenit (the winner of the 2016 BT Infinity Lab competition). Sceenic has worked with BT Sport to support last year’s launch of Watch Together on the BT Sport App, and Seenit has enabled fans to send in short video reports and comments from stadia around the country as part of BT Sport’s Premier League Tonight show.

Innovate 21 is looking for entrepreneurs, creatives and start-ups to pitch products and services that will play a significant role in BT Sport’s broadcasts and productions.

Ron Chakraborty, lead executive, major events at BBC Sport talks to Broadcast Tech and Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the BBC's new virtual studio at the club, which will be its main presentation space at Wimbledon 2021. He also talks about Covid-19 enforced changes to the broadcaster's camera positions as well as its production setup at Wimbledon, to ensure social distancing of production staff. Chakraborty also covers the BBC's expansion of UHD 4K content from Wimbledon, to cater for increased demand from the public for high-resolution sports.

Sky Sports director of cricket Bryan Henderson talks to Broadcast Sport editor Jake Bickerton about the launch of The Hundred cricket tournament, which begins next month.

The Hundred aims to bring a new audience to cricket with simple-to-understand rules, fast-paced game play and building the format around an entertainment-first approach.

Henderson explains why The Hundred is different to what’s gone before, and then provides great insight into Sky Sports’ plans for its coverage of the new cricket format.

Sky has been involved in The Hundred since the early stages of the development of the format and has devised five pillars that underpin how it will present and produce content from The Hundred. These are:

1. Cricket is for everybody
2. Sport-led entertainment
3. Who’s winning?
4. Closer to the players
5. Force for good

Henderson explains all these pillars in detail in this podcast, focusing on how they have influenced Sky Sports’ approach to the production and broadcast of the series.

He also covers the rights deal that sees Sky become the host broadcaster and showing all games, with the BBC also airing 18 live matches from the tournament.