RT Mixes 2026 World Football Championship Commentary With Calrec Type R

RT combined Calrec's Type R system with its SMPTE ST 2110 network to change how it mixed commentary for the 2026 World Football Championship. Where six commentary booths once needed an operator on each mixer, the signals from every booth fed a single multi-mix area handled by one sound operator, with a team of four covering the tournament's 104 matches.

Since 2023, Synthax Audio, Calrec's UK partner, has installed Type R in seven of RT 's radio studios as part of a large-scale upgrade. When RT 's TV Sound Operations team set out requirements for a multi-mix commentary area, RT and Calrec's engineering teams worked together on the solution. The team built a development and test system using a Type R IP Core, a couple of panels and the Calrec Assist browser-based interface.

The final setup has six 6-fader panels, one per commentary position, with a second layer on each controlling aux buses and outputs, alongside six Large Soft Panel touchscreens. The architecture mirrors RT 's radio installations, with main and redundant Cores and an analog breakout box, all connected to the broadcaster's SMPTE ST 2110 network. The mixer, commentary boxes and comms system are all ST 2110 and connect to the house router.

The two Cores sit in a rack room in the building, and the analog breakout box sits in the gallery. The breakout box is on the network rather than on the Core, so if the on-air Core fails, the system switches to the standby Core, which reconnects to the breakout box automatically in about a second. The Type R consoles connect over standard Cat6 cabling to a switch linked to the Cores. RT involved its first-line support and central apparatus room teams, along with partners, from the outset.

We're already very familiar with the Calrec Type R for radio, says Roland de Groot, Media Production and Infrastructure Manager, RT . When the TV Sound Ops team gave us their list of technical and operational requirements, some of the engineers in my team said, actually, I think we can cover this pretty much with a Type R, maybe 80 per cent out of the box.'

Once we started building this actual environment, we quickly realised that yes, we can make this happen, we can make this work, says de Groot. The mixer is 2110, our commentary boxes are 2110, and our comms system is 2110. All the signals, all the sources, and all the destinations are connected to our 2110 house router, and all this combined allowed us to build a very powerful, very flexible system.

It's effectively a data centre system, which is accessed by the consoles over standard IP, says de Groot. It's a rack room in the building, but technically it could be anywhere.

I think there were four operators mixing these 104 matches; that's pretty much the biggest win, says de Groot.

This project highlights the value of flexible technology in the hands of experienced engineers, says Henry Goodman, Director of Product Management, Calrec. RT identified an opportunity to extend the use of a product they already knew, developing a solution that met their requirements while making the most of existing expertise and infrastructure. It's a great example of innovation driven by operational knowledge and RT has shown just how far it can go.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/11/04/rte-mixes-2026-world-football-c...
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