Live from Aintree: ITV Sport's Paul McNamara on the need for planning, efficiency and precision to deliver the Grand National By Adrian Pennington
Friday, April 14, 2023 - 15:05
Print This Story
Paul McNamara: Your aim is to tell everyone where their horses are on the field'
ITV Sport senior director and executive producer for major events Paul McNamara is one of the most experienced (and award-winning) hands in the business with a CV that includes everything from Six Nations rugby to football World Cups as well as racing, including taking charge of the Grand National for the UK commercial broadcaster since 2016.
The core of the race is pretty much how we cover any other big race meeting like Cheltenham, Ascot or the Derby, but the size of the field, the scale of the course and the history of the event means we throw more toys and people at it, he explains, ahead of this year's event which takes place on Saturday (15 April).
Race coverage for the National is mapped out in advance, including cut points for each camera and a shot sequence which has evolved year on year, adjusting to suit editorial changes.
Inside the Equinox OB, which is on site for the event
You are basically following the leaders but doing so in a certain way so that everyone understands how the race unfolds, McNamara explains. Once the leaders have jumped a fence you hold the shot to see the majority of the field over that fence - especially in the first circuit. Once the field spreads out more over the second circuit it becomes a bit trickier - and trickier still if one horse steams away from the pack but your aim is to tell everyone where their horses are on the field.
McNamara is in the director's chair for all of ITV's live afternoon coverage throughout this year's three-day Grand National Festival. Production planning meetings have been taking place since the start of the year to decide which features to include in each programme, who we're going to concentrate on, what we're going to look at. Any of that editorial is planned meticulously in advance, he says.
This includes building features from the archive as reference points and comparisons for the current race.
You know the drill
On site before the live shows, McNamara's job is to fine tune the planning and make sure everyone knows the drill.
We do it week in week out, but we'll always have a meeting every morning and go through the schedule. We're checking that all the gear like wire cams and the AR is working, briefing our heli crew to pre-record some Liverpool city landmarks for a prerecord, checking everything through, organising the pre-record list for items that are maybe too tricky to do in a live situation, telling presenters where I want them at what time.
It's got to be military precision because we've got so many presenters and camera crew over such a big site you have to have everyone understanding the order of things. It has to run really efficiently otherwise it will fall apart.
An important consideration, especially given the size of the TV audience, is being alert to injuries or potential fatalities on the course.
We don't want to cause any offence or distress to anyone owners, connections, families, jockeys, the TV audience. If there's an incident my assistant will get a call and I would immediately say to the guys here that we need to avoid that shot. I'd either get them to shoot tighter and definitely not use an aerial of that particular point. Often the stewards will bypass a fence and take that fence out of the course.
It's got to be military precision because we've got so many presenters and camera crew over such a big site you have to have everyone understanding the order of things
Once the main race is over McNamara and his team will cut all the celebrations and arrivals back into the parade ring, as well as interviews with the winning trainer and jockey, only after which will he have a chance to catch his breath.
In the last 40-minutes of the show we'll be dropping in all the best shots and angles the EVS ops serve up. The idea is to rinse as much of the material as we can. By going into and coming back from breaks and teasers we're constantly trying to get bang for our buck and really use everything. It may be that we didn't in the end use a particular camera at all so maybe you decide to do something different next year. Things have to get in on value.
It's not about any one person, he insists, it's a huge team event. We've great people in front of camera and an amazing crew behind it who have done the National for years and you couldn't do it without all their skill and expertise.
The weather hasn't exactly been clement this year but that's something that is not in his control.
If there's beautiful sunshine everyone's got a smile on their face, it looks like a carnival event, and if you've got rain lashing into the cameras it's a little different, but the National is such a fixture that everyone has a good time and we will reflect that.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Live from Aintree: ITV Sport's Paul McNamara on the need for planning, efficiency and precision to deliver the Grand National By Adrian Pennington 
