Fox Sports 1's engineering and operations crew includes (L to R): Mike Wilken, vice president, Todd Daly, executive vice president and Richard Friedel, executive vice president and general manager.
LOS ANGELES When founding a sports network, it's helpful to be able to start the build-out as a division of a legendary, multi-billion dollar media entity that's been a pillar of the industry since what seems like the beginning of time. Those are the circumstances for the execs at Fox Sports' Los Angeles headquarters, who are finding that scenario has helped to facilitate the founding of its new sports channel, Fox Sports 1, which is being created as Fox Sports' answer to ESPN. While the arrangement has offered some economies of scale, the project remains a huge undertaking, requiring the renovation of more than half of the 250,000-square-foot Fox Network Center in Century City, Calif.
But the ramp-up has progressed well and Fox Sports 1, and its flagship show, Fox Sports Live, are on schedule to debut the program on a platform near you be it in your living room, on your desk or in the palm of your hand on Aug. 17.
EARLY PLANNING
Fox Sports Live will air from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. eastern time and will be refreshed hourly; the most recent hour will be repeated overnight, with breaking news as it happens. The network will also air other programming during those day parts, based on its seven pillar sports: college basketball and football, NASCAR, soccer, UFC and ancillary programs about the NFL, with Major League Baseball to become part of the schedule in 2014.
Among the programming will be Fox Football Daily and Crowd Goes Wild, a one-hour talk show to be hosted from New York by Regis Philbin that will air on weekday evenings.
The Fox network engineering and operations trio of Richard Friedel, executive vice president and general manager; Todd Daly, executive vice president; and Mike Wilken, vice president, are in charge of the buildout for the sports news operation, which will emanate from an 8,400-square-foot full production set known as Studio B; with a working, on-camera newsroom located on another floor.
While there has been some consolidation of services at the Fox Network Center, which came online in 1997, some complications arose due to the fact that the building cannot physically be expanded.
Therefore, to accommodate Fox Sports 1, the center (which is located on the Fox movie/television production lot and houses playout functions for Fox's national cable channels, including FX, National Geographic Channel and others), has been retrofitted, in spots, to make room for about 200 new employees, said Friedel, who runs engineering and operations, noting that some old offices were ripped out in the process.
Fox Sports 1 will emanate from an 8,400-squarefoot full production set, known as Studio B; with a working, on-camera newsroom located on another floor.
FROM THE INSIDE
Fox had already purchased most of its new equipment and was finalizing installation at press time. The updated roster will include multiple cameras, with Grass Valley LDK 8000 cameras operating in Studio B and three of the latest Ikegami HDL 50s in use in the working newsroom.
The network has also expanded its existing Quantel server-based production system, with additional ingest ports and editing capabilities. In addition, Fox is deploying a sports content management system using Dalet and Brio ingest servers to enhance production workflow. Fox Sports is also implementing the Ross OverDrive system in its automated control room to support news production and breaking news.
The entire news operation is heavily automated, where appropriate, said Friedel, such as in the production of news breaks, and Fox Sports is in the midst of expanding the internal video distribution system to more than 200 channels.
That equipment roster and the correlating expansion were designed to meet certain goals, according to Daly. The creation of Fox Sports 1 meant an incredible increase of production, so the new equipment additions will give us maximum flexibility to handle that dramatic increase in volume and handle more production on our new, tighter schedule, he said. In addition, it will allow us to react to new production requests that arise with any new channel.
Wilken echoed that thought. We have a large facility here, he said, but to accommodate Fox Sports 1, almost every system that was already here had to be expanded.
That's because we're doing more editing and have added additional Mac graphic systems for design, Vizrt for sophisticated playback, added a full control room and are upgrading others, thus expanding our remote acquisition, said Friedel, also noting expanded bandwidth of the Fox fiber network. We're very lucky that we're on Vyvx POP here at the broadcast center. That's allowed us to add additional transmit and receive capacity to handle the increased volume that Fox Sports 1 will create.
Studio production is increasing four fold, while transmission receive and transmit capabilities are also expanding with inbound receive capability nearly doubling to accommodate our expanded news operation, Daly added.
THE WORK NEVER STOPS'
With Fox Sports 1's space and equipment equations just about solved, next comes the final technical preparation and operator training for as many as 300 production employees with about a month to go before its early August debut, Friedel said. We're creating completely new workflows, evaluating everything and improving whatever we can, wherever possible.
The idea, he said, was to understand the importance of providing better service capability for the producers, who will need more tools to
Most recent headlines
04/08/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, is excited to announce Santiago Solanas as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO)....
03/06/2024
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, a...
05/05/2024
A special evening performance by multiplatinum singer Becky G will provide a memorable conclusion to TeievisaUnivision's Casa Cultura upfront event on May 1...
05/05/2024
Giant media buyer Publicis is telling network sales executives that it does not think Nielsen's new panel-plus-big-data currency is ready for this upfront....
05/05/2024
WASHINGTON Glenn Kirschner, legal analyst at NBC News, blasted the media for referring to the New York trial of former President Donald Trump as a hush-money ...
05/05/2024
Catchy Comedy's weekend marathon sees The Beverly Hillbillies on the weekend of May 4-5. The event kicks off Saturday, May 4 at 11 a.m. ET, and runs through...
05/05/2024
NBC Sports has the 150th Kentucky Derby Saturday, May 4. The coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock and the feature race at Churchill Downs in Louis...
04/05/2024
NEW YORK As the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month kicks off in May, Nielsen has released an extensive new report diving into their media habits with data sh...
04/05/2024
PHILADELPHIA As National Military Appreciation Month gets underway, Comcast has announced several new initiatives to help veterans, service members, and their f...
04/05/2024
WASHINGTON, D.C. Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has announced a tentative agenda for the May Open Commission Meeting scheduled...
04/05/2024
The Broadband Forum has announced major enhancements to key 5G convergence standards that the group said will help advance next-generation applications, improve...
04/05/2024
Spotify Wrapped Campaign Spot Graded With DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 3, 2024
0 Comments
Blackmagic Design today announced that Colorist M...
04/05/2024
Three Boston Conservatory at Berklee Alums Nominated for Tony Awards An additional eight alums and two current students performed in nominated productions.
...
03/05/2024
An innovative learning tool to help media and civil society better understand ho...
03/05/2024
PARK CITY, UTAH - JANUARY 21: (L-R) Actors K stutis Cic nas and Greta Grinevi i t , Director Marija Kavtaradze and Producer Marija Razgute attend the 2023 Sunda...
03/05/2024
If you aren't familiar with Danny Ocean's music, it's only a matter ...
03/05/2024
Spotify has an unwavering commitment to supporting emerging artists across all genres, to helping them launch and thrive in their careers, and to connecting the...
03/05/2024
Como uno de los sonidos de mayor expansi n en el mundo, la M sica Mexicana va m ...
03/05/2024
As one of the fastest-growing sounds worldwide, M sica Mexicana is more than jus...
03/05/2024
NEW YORK FuboTV reported that it lost 110,000 subs in Q1 2024 but it exceeded its guidance for the quarter with double digit year-over-year increases across key...
03/05/2024
Only 3 Weeks Left To Enter The Creative Industries Most Award
Brie Clayton May 3, 2024
0 Comments
Creativepool is giving a last call to the creative i...
03/05/2024
WePlay Studios Transforms the Future of Live Event Storytelling with AJA Gear
Brie Clayton May 3, 2024
0 Comments
By 2032, the esports market is expec...
03/05/2024
WASHINGTON Shannon Bream, Fox News Sunday anchor and chief legal correspondent, sat for a keynote chat at The Business of TV News, with Tom Umstead, senior co...
03/05/2024
WASHINGTON Asked how important is local news, Martha Raddatz, who has covered foreign conflicts for decades and moderated presidential debates for ABC News, s...
03/05/2024
Sony Pictures and Apollo Global Management have made a $26 billion cash offer fo...
03/05/2024
CBS announced its 2024-2025 primetime schedule, which features the new dramas NCIS: Origins, Matlock and Watson, and new comedies Poppa's House and Georgie ...
03/05/2024
Sports-focused streaming service Fubo said it reduced its red ink in the first quarter, despite losing 110,000 subscribers since the end of the year....
03/05/2024
Walmart is reportedly about to release a new 4K streaming box/smart speaker hybrid device for Google TV that could retail for as low as $50, according to a repo...
03/05/2024
Enhancements to its Delivery Workspace solution provide increased content delivery robustness and security
By Matthew Corrigan
Published: May 3, 2024
Enha...
03/05/2024
According to reports, if the bid is successful, Sony would be the significant majority shareholder of the new private company
By Jenny Priestley
Published: M...
03/05/2024
Located in Manchesters Spinningfields district, the course aims to equip students with the skills, knowledge and industry insight for a career in the creative s...
03/05/2024
Lightbridge has created a new Cine Reflect Lighting System kit, dedicated to enabling artistic lighting with consideration of today's productivity practical...
03/05/2024
Broadcast media systems integrator BeckTV and Lawo worked together on a large-scale AES67 build of radio control rooms at KPBS, San Diego's NPR and PBS memb...
03/05/2024
Raleigh, NC, April 12, 2024 SmallHD announces PageOS 6, a powerful software update free for owners of SmallHD monitors, featuring increased functionality, exp...
03/05/2024
SmallHD announces the Quantum 32 a new 31.5 OLED monitor designed to provide reference HDR/SDR images for post-production final color grading, as well as cri...
03/05/2024
By 2032, the esports market is expected to grow to $9.29 billion, bolstered by a global player count and fan following that both continue to climb. The 2023 Lea...
03/05/2024
Amagi, the global leader in cloud-based SaaS technology for broadcast and connected TV (CTV), today announced that the 11th edition of the Amagi Global FAST Rep...
03/05/2024
Riedel Communications today announced that Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) is relying on a media and intercom network based on Riedel technology for the renewal of...
03/05/2024
Broadpeak , a leading provider of content delivery network (CDN) and video streaming solutions for content providers and pay-TV operators worldwide, announced t...
03/05/2024
Media technology innovator Limecraft will exhibit the latest updates to its online platform on stand G79 at the 15-16 May 2024 Media Production & Technology Sho...
03/05/2024
Audio interface specialist Prism Sound is partnering with console manufacturer Solid State Logic, professional monitor manufacturer PMC and acoustic panel and d...
03/05/2024
Intinor, Sweden's leading developer of products and solutions for high-quality video over the internet, is set to join forces with its UK partner Zest Techn...
03/05/2024
NAKIVO Inc., a fast-growing software company dedicated to protecting physical, virtual, cloud, and SaaS environments, announced its Q1 2024 financial results to...
03/05/2024
Hiltron Communications announces an addition to its range of satellite communication products and systems: a field-upgradable motorisation kit specifically desi...
03/05/2024
Visit LiveU at Stand D30
With this year an exceptional one for major sporting events alongside multiple, key elections, the power and flexibility of LiveU'...
03/05/2024
Agile Content, the leader in the development of technology and solutions for the provision of television services over the Internet, announces Koldo Unanue as i...
03/05/2024
Eight co-signers representing streaming services, pay TV operators and public interest groups have sent a letter to Congressional leaders urging their Committee...
03/05/2024
BOSTON Brightcove has announced that it has implemented Amazon Q Business, a new generative AI assistant on Amazon Web Services (AWS)....
03/05/2024
NEW YORK CBS has declared that it will finish the 2023-24 season as Americas Most-Watched Network in primetime for the 16th consecutive season....
Fox Sports 1's engineering and operations crew includes (L to R): Mike Wilken, vice president, Todd Daly, executive vice president and Richard Friedel, executive vice president and general manager. 
