Premier League re-start: How Sky Sports went remote for the first time EFL remote production experience invaluable as Sky team takes another giant step By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe
Thursday, June 25, 2020 - 15:49
Print This Story
The Premier League returned to action last week after a 100-day hiatus because of the coronavirus. Sky Sports was the first broadcaster back on air on Wednesday 17 June with a double header featuring Aston Villa v Sheffield United followed by Manchester City v Arsenal.
The next day, 18 June, several key members of the Sky production team including the Man City v Arsenal match director joined moderator Will Strauss to discuss the new production normal' at SVG Europe's virtual Football Summit 2020.
On the vMix/Singular Live virtual platform for the session were Lawrence Cawsey, senior director, Sky Sports Football; Jena Mihalovic, technical operations project lead, Sky Sports; Kevin Ramsey, director of studios, Sky Production Services; and John Turnbull, deputy managing director, NEP UK Broadcast Services.
The discussion covered match directing, remote production, crewing and staff protocols, social distancing and health and safety, and what life is now like when working on live football coverage.
There was quite a lot of pressure on the whole Sky team last night, directing Premier League football remotely, said Cawsey. There were many things we did for the first time last night. The technical and planning teams have done an amazing job in enabling us to deliver everything.
What was it like to direct? Being away from the ground has its challenges. Obviously there were new camera and interview positions, and as a director you're used to walking around before the game and obviously that is not possible when you are remote.
It was the first time I've directed a game with no fans, and I would say, coming away from yesterday, I had a real appreciation of how important stadium fans are to the TV viewing experience, said Cawsey.
We rely a lot as directors on emotional shots of players in our storytelling, and these shots just don't seem to happen as much with no fans in the stadium because the players don't have fans to feed off. And normally you will hear the noise of the fans reverberate through the walls of the truck and that emits an energy to you and your crew.
I chose to listen last night with the natural stadium audio as opposed to the augmented audio that Sky was offering, and it was a challenge to keep the energy levels up.
But the one massive bonus of remote production is to be able to be home within ten minutes of the end of my shift, rather than a four-hour drive down the M6.
Watch the session in full
The first thing we led with was health and safety, said Jena Mihalovic. We always want people to be safe, but this is a very unique situation, having people coming back and working two metres apart.
Everybody who has worked in television knows we like to be together! We lean on each other and work in very dense spaces.
So the first thing we had to figure out was how to give each person what they needed to do their job in a safe way. That meant deconstructing how we normally work.
So we created four separate graphics hubs, so that our graphics operators and stats people could operate at a safe place outside of the gallery. We looked at ways to limit the number of people on-site and people at Sky so that everybody can be kept safe. John can speak about that from the stadium side.
In addition to graphics are the replay rooms. EVS operators like to operate shoulder to shoulder. It's very hard to separate them out! So we built an entirely new replay area still side by side but a little bit further away then they would like to be.
Everybody who has worked in television knows we like to be together! - Jena Mihalovic
We also pulled our lighting directors out of the gallery and located them at another safe station at Sky. So it was really about unpacking our usual work spaces in a safe way.
Remote production has been with Sky for I think about five years now, added Mihalovic. We've touched on it for previous productions. But last year we made a commitment to take the EFL remote, so we transformed the gallery and added connectivity, working with NEP Connect, to get connectivity at all of the grounds.
We did about 50 games with the EFL and that has truly prepared us for slipping into the Premier League. I don't think we could have done what we've done as easily without the experience we gained from doing the EFL day in and day out and learning from that as we went. That was really important.
So while it wasn't easy' it was an easy decision to make to go to remote production and keep our people safe by moving Premier League into the gallery we created for EFL, and then moving EFL, with a slightly reduced spec, into another gallery - adding the remote connectivity we needed there.
The gallery still looks the same and acts the same to the production staff, which is a great comfort and also helps with the transition, she said.
Overcoming obstacles without compromising the safety of people
Kevin Ramsey began by saying, Well first of all I need to change teams after the Arsenal result last night! It goes without saying that Sky's production teams have incredibly high standards and expectations in the work they produce.
As the department that supplies both facilities and operational crews for Sky Sports it can be incredibly rewarding working side by side with people who push the boundaries. But there's a flip side to that in the amount of graft it takes to support their visions!
Especially at this time when there are so many logistical obstacles in our way. We clearly didn't want to be the weak link that undermined what went to air. So what
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
With John Daro, DI Colourist at Warner Bros. Water Tower Color Tuesday 23 June, 10am-1pm or 3-6pm
Restar Corporation
Tokyo
Register here
John Daro is the ...
12/06/2026
Meet The Grumpy Onion Ireland's newest online sensation, all he wants is to ...
12/06/2026
RT stays Up All Night with brand new daily 2026 FIFA World Cup Vodcast
Adding to the fun around 2026 FIFA World Cup tournament, RT has launched a brand new d...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
Premier League re-start: How Sky Sports went remote for the first time EFL remote production experience invaluable as Sky team takes another giant step By Fergal Ringrose, Editorial Director, Europe 
