Interview: Input Media

Broadcast operations firm Input Media may lack the glamorous profile of media giant IMG, but its client roster tells an impressive story. From a compact but well-equipped studio in West London, the company handles standard and high definition broadcasts for a range of international players, including UEFA, The Football Association, Sky Sports, ITV and the French Tennis Federation.

Input Media's association with the UEFA Champions League began right at the competition's inception in 1992/93. After starting off handling just the isolated slow-mo cameras, the firm gradually added more responsibilities and now provides live feed and highlights coverage for a variety of international territories. David Wood, a former ITV veteran who is the firm's executive chairman, explained that Input Media also handles the half-time highlights which are beamed via satellite to big screens at stadiums around Europe.

"We had a guy come and tour the studios a while ago and we told him to look at the monitor showing the Bayern Munich stadium as the big screen was putting out just what we had running here," said Wood. "That always blows their minds!"

Input Media has a contract with the FA to distribute all its live material, preview programming and highlights to broadcasters around the world. The company also works on site at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea to help produce the Chelsea TV channel, and even handles full outside broadcasts for the club's reserve games. From its server-based studio, the operator works with Arsenal TV to create live and on-demand content for the club's mobile and online platforms. Another Input Media studio in Manchester predominantly handles a long-running association with Everton TV.

The collapse of Setanta last year resulted in contrasting strategies for TV channels operated by football clubs. Arsenal and Liverpool were both previously offered by the Irish sports broadcaster, and so the firm's demise placed them at a crossroads. Wood said that Liverpool had invested heavily in a studio and hired a production team, which meant that it would have "probably cost them more to wind down than carry in". The club therefore opted to continue its LFC TV channel as a standalone subscription offering on Sky and Virgin Media. In contrast, Arsenal took the same route as Chelsea of taking its Arsenal TV channel online to avoid the heavy costs of a linear channel.

"Arsenal decided not to pay to keep their channel on air, and instead went back to their broadband routes," said Wood. "So we continue to make programming for them to run over broadband, with some of it streamed live and other parts on-demand. On a subscription basis, that brings in an income which it wouldn't have if they were still maintaining a channel, with the cost of the satellite transponder, EPG position and subscription controls."

In October last year, England's World Cup qualifier against Ukraine was broadcast exclusively online via pay-per-view for the first time ever. Digital agency Perform agreed to screen the game over the web after Kentaro had failed to find a buyer for the broadcast rights, which were previously owned by Setanta.

For the landmark online broadcast, Perform used Input Media's London studio to produce the coverage and stream it live via broadband around the UK. Former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson even provided analysis in a small studio on the ground floor. The rather unique circumstances surrounding the event supplied a really interesting test case for how sport could be broadcast in the future.

Input Media managing director David Johnson said that it's doubtful an England game will ever become available again in such a way, but the Perform initiative did show what is possible with sports rights in a digital age.

"Particularly for niche channels, online and broadband is going to represent an opportunity to do things that would have been too expensive even in the cable and satellite world," said Johnson. "We recently did two FA Cup replays for FA.com, which were on the same night as a Chelsea Champions League game on ITV, but still got some really good numbers considering there was live sport on TV. My daughter watched one of those replays on her laptop over the wireless network and the picture was perfectly good. Some younger people don't even want to watch sport on the big screen anymore."

Wood added: "It's about getting the sport out there on a budget that is doable for everybody, but [online streaming] is becoming more of an opportunity for people. Once we get fibres into the home, there won't be an issue with watching television over the internet. I was in Singapore a while ago talking to SingTel. They have exclusive live rights to Europa League, Champions League and English Premier League, but if you want to watch it you have to log on to their broadband. It's so fast, though, that it's a viable option. People pay per match to watch it."

Google recently unveiled its new Google TV platform, which will enable users to browse the internet while also watching TV. The development was another landmark in the increasing move towards connected-TV services. For a company like Input Media, which is equally at home with internet broadcasts as linear TV, the industry trend represents an abundance of opportunities.

"For a producer, the proliferation of platforms is a real opportunity," said Johnson. "There aren't the same level of budgets that you would get from a traditional broadcaster but there are so many more avenues that you can use to exploit content. Whether we own the rights or we are working on behalf of a client who owns the rights, it doesn't matter as the key thing that we can bring to the party is repurposing of the content for the appropriate channel."

For the World Cup in South Africa, Input Media has hired a studio at the The V&A Waterfront World Media & Legacy Centre in Cape Town, where it will be handling broadcast operations and doing "stand-up" interview pieces by the waterfront. Sky Sports News has already been signed up as the studio's "anchor tenant" for the month-long tournament, while Al Jazeera has booked in for a six-day stint. Input Media intends to host other broadcasters as the tournament progresses for ten-minute pieces or longer periods. The World Cup's International Broadcast Centre is based at Johannesburg, but the firm opted for Cape Town because of the opportunity it offered.

"The reason we went for Cape Town was because we knew there was not much broadcast infrastructure there," said Wood. "There are eight matches in Cape Town, five group and three knockout, including a semi. Other than the host broadcaster operations, there is a TV studio at the waterfront but they just do soap programmes. They don't have an MCR (master control room) and they aren't used to going out live."

The BBC is also operating a production base in Cape Town, including a rooftop glass studio designed to give a backdrop view of Table Mountain. However, Wood said that a "big worry" for the corporation will be the weather.

"It's going to mid-winter so there will lots of cloud, which is why our studio faces the stadium rather than Table Mountain," said Wood. "A big worry for them is that they are so high up that the wind will howl and the rain will come down. When a storm comes in, it's something special. As I understand it, access to the studio is via an external builders lift. I hope it's a covered box otherwise Gabby Logan's hair will be interesting when she gets up there!"