Roland-Garros 2025: Whisper on getting into the psyche of the FFT as the new host broadcaster for the French Grand Slam By Heather McLean Wednesday, May 28, 2025 - 14:24
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Host court side cameras on Court 6 at Roland-Garros 2023
This is independent production company Whisper's first year as host broadcaster for the F d ration Fran aise de Tennis (FFT) at Roland-Garros.
Whisper is producing all the live coverage from the 16 courts at the venue that will be played during the tournament. It is producing the world feed know at Roland-Garros as the international super signal (ISS) as well as non-live content, which began before the tournament and which continues during. Crew from Whisper are also working closely with the FFT's team of content creators from the digital team on social media content for rights holders. Finally, outside of the host broadcast remit, Whisper is going above and beyond delivering two shows for the FFT and Roland-Garros YouTube channel.
Whisper has taken over the reins from HBS, which produced the French Grand Slam as host broadcaster for the FFT since 2021 when the Federation took the live broadcast production inhouse. HBS worked with the FFT since 2019 providing the world feeds. Its relationship with the FTT dated back as far as 2010.
New blood
Speaking to SVG Europe, Amandine Tyl, head of production and broadcast services at the FFT, comments on why the FFT went for Whisper: Probably the main reason we changed to Whisper is really that we wanted on our side to bring the production to another level over the next five years, because this is a five year agreement. Part of that is we have introduced quite a lot of new things.
Sebastian Tiffert, account director at Whisper, comments on Whisper's goals for the relationship between itself and the FFT: It was so important to keep this French flair the French l'esprit of Roland-Garros. This is a Grand Slam, which is so close to the heart of all Parisians and the French, so it was really the goal to keep this spirit within the coverage, and I think with an international team but with a strong French heart two thirds of our crew on site are either based in Paris or French that was very, very important for Whisper, as well coming into this tournament to develop it over the next five years.
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On how that development of the production will pan out over the period of Whisper's contract, Tyl is tight-lipped, but says: For sure we have planning and a schedule in mind to improve once again the coverage of the tournament [over the course of the contract] because this is what we want to achieve. We didn't want to do everything in year one. I think we have made quite a lot of improvements in year one, but there is a plan to do even better in the future.
Whisper's team has been working hard to get into the psyche of the FFT over the last year, says Tiffert. Everybody goes in each other's offices and is welcome there and can discuss [thoughts and ideas] openly. This is what we want to develop with the FFT over the next five years to be able to really anticipate and build the muscle memory to really understand not only what audiences want, but as well what works for a federation like the FFT.
Says Tyl: We started to work on this project more than a year ago now, because moving from another host broadcaster is a tough job. So we've had a very long planning [period] set up with Sebastian and the Whisper team.
All change!
Whisper has made a substantial number of changes to the Slam's coverage this year. Notes Tyl: We will deliver to all right holders English commentary on top of the ISS production, which is really a ready to air programme from the first point of the day till the last point of the day, so you get the best of tennis on this ISS feed.
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In the past we used to deliver only two ISS to broadcasters, so they were getting ISS Prime and ISS Extra, but we believe that the needs of broadcasters have slightly changed because most of them now have over the top (OTT) platforms, and we want to be able to give more content to broadcasters and also [give them] the opportunity for them to make their own choices regarding the targets they have, especially [to be able to cover] their local heroes.
Now all broadcasters of Roland-Garros will get access to the ISS with full English commentaries, and on top of that two full-commentated cold feeds in English, so this is means a wider distribution of Roland-Garros for all broadcasters, Tyl notes.
Personal stamp
On how Whisper is putting its personal stamp on the production, Tiffert says: It will be mainly visible through the non-live content, and the added content we provide, which will have a very Whisper touch too. It will have the FFT and the Roland-Garros feel, but I think that the Whisper creativity will shine through.
Of course we hope that we get good quality time with the players throughout the tournament so we can really showcase their personalities and make them more relatable. But then as well, I think the Whisper tradition of storytelling is as well how Whisper approaches host broadcast, so while other companies might come from the engineering part, we come from the storytelling part, Tiffert states.
He explains further: Where Whisper comes from is really on the storytelling side. I think the non-live side is [an area] we have changed a lot already in the run up to Roland-Garros; we delivered classic programming for broadcasters a few months back, and then a whole suite of digital assets short form content so they can really fuel their social media ch
