Live From Roland Garros: Tennis Channel Expands Hours of Coverage for its Super Bowl' With more courts covered, Tennis Channel has expanded both televised and streamed offerings By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, May 29, 2018 - 12:12 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Tennis Channel is once again on hand in a big way at the French Open and for good reason: This is our Super Bowl, says Bob Whyley, SVP, production/executive producer, Tennis Channel, of the network's comprehensive and multiplatform coverage. The expanded coverage this year will mean more than 300 hours of televised coverage for fans in the U.S. as well as 700 hours of court coverage via Tennis Channel Plus. The F d ration Fran aise de Tennis (FFT) increased overall court coverage this year, and Tennis Channel is making sure all of that additional coverage makes it to viewers.
The Tennis Channel's control room at the French Open was once again put together by VER.
More is more, says Whyley. There are more courts available. so we're taking more courts and putting it up on over the top.
Tennis Channel has approximately 175 crew members onsite, working across the grounds as well as in a main production-control room, an asset-management area, six announce booths, and a main set on Place des Mousquetaires. The production facilities are provided by VER for the fifth year.
They hit it out of the park this year, Whyley says of VER's efforts.
Centurylink is providing fiber transport to the U.S. via 10-Gbps circuits. Those circuits are carrying about 1 Gbps of data and video services, including 12 channels outbound and additional capacity used for file transfer to Culver City, CA, via Aspera. Viewers are receiving not only plenty of on-court coverage but also coverage of press conferences, iso cameras, and more as the Tennis Channel team looks to deliver a full experience.
All of us are in the impressions business, and more is more, adds Whyley. It doesn't matter if you're young or old: you want choice, and so we're giving more choice.
Tennis Channel also has a pretty big social-media and digital presence onsite, and, with tennis.com and Tennis magazine now part of the same corporate family, the opportunity for content to extend out in new directions is better than ever.
We are under the same group for content production, so we have a team that is popping stuff off for all of the digital platforms and apps you can think of, says Whyley. We're content folks, and it doesn't matter what platform it is: we're platform-agnostic. And, yes, some platforms require things to look and feel a little bit different, but it is all coming from the same group.
The production team also includes five announce teams to help call the action for matches both on TV and streamed. One challenge with the French Open vs. the other tennis majors is that the FFT announcers for the smaller courts call the action in French. That requires Tennis Channel to have its own commentators to provide English commentary for Tennis Channel Plus and DirecTV Mosaic services.
When we started on Sunday, it was Day 147 [of the season] for us, and, for 138 of those, we have been doing live tennis in some form or another, whether from a remote location or our studios in Culver City, says Whyley. When we walk in here, we just continue to tell the story of tennis that has been going on since January.
VER systems designer Bruno Brunelle is overseeing the Tennis Channel deployment at Roland Garros,
VER's efforts have remained stable for five years: the technical approach has worked, and Tennis Channel is comfortable with it. VER provides two control rooms, with one used by Tennis Channel and the other by NBC. They feature identical layouts and similar gear, including Grass Valley Kayenne 5ME production switchers with 112 inputs and Calrec Artemis audio consoles with 64 faders.
According to VER Systems Designer Bruno Brunelle, 18 EVS replay operators are working on 14 EVS IPDirector systems tied to 13 EVS XT3 servers in the machine room. Fiber, he says, also plays a key role: all the booths and the studio are connected via fiber. VER also provides an RF camera and mic that can be used to roam the Roland Garros grounds and send images to the broadcast facility.
We used to have 21 EVS servers, he notes, but, with the channel count and EVS SpotBoxes, we were able to get that down to 13.
Tennis Channel is bucking the trend of cloud-based production workflows and still relies on EVS XFile for storage of archival content. Each XFile hard drive is fully logged, making it easy for production teams to find out which one has the content they need and to have that content ingested onto either a MediaGrid server with 132 TB of storage or a separate Avid Nexis server, which is connected to four Avid Media Composers. It's EVS for ingest, Avid for postproduction, and Media Grid for nearline storage.
Jay Deutsche, system and workflow design, VER, maintains the MediaGrid server and says that EVS IPDirectors are used to shop around the network for content and also to continually send it to the editing team.
All day long, he says, the team is loading drives, as the archive is here with us and it comes everywhere with the Tennis Channel. It's a lot of drives, but it is a continual workflow, and it works as everyone gets in a rhythm.
The system also gets heavy use: on Day 1 alone, six loggers created more than 5,000 log entries.
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
23/10/2025
A deadline is looming for a new carriage deal between Verizon's Fios TV and Nexstar, with both Verizon and the pay TV-backed American Television Alliance bl...
23/10/2025
NEW YORK During a high-profile session at NAB Show New York, new survey data was shared that revealed significant public concern over artificial intelligence (A...
23/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. and NEW YORK Fox Weather has tapped T-Mobile has as its preferred communications provider and announced that all Fox Weather reporters are being...
23/10/2025
PBS and Amazon Web Services have announced the network is using generative AI to provide enhanced search results to viewers on the PBS App and PBS LearningMedia...
23/10/2025
Series three of the award winning, hit comedy entertainment series The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock In is back on your screens, celebrating the very best of all t...
23/10/2025
Performances by Michael Flatley, Andy Irvine, Cuckoo's Nest, Foster and Allen and more
Friday 24 October, 8pm on RT One and RT Player
Fleadh Cheoil re...
23/10/2025
The nights grow longer and the shadows get bolder with Vampire The Masquerade: B...
22/10/2025
Prime Video Inks Deal To Present NFL Black Friday Game Worldwide By SVG Staff
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 - 10:06 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story ...
22/10/2025
NBA Tip-Off: ESPN Goes 1080p HDR End-to-End, Flipping HDR Switch on REMI and REM...
22/10/2025
FloSports Empowers Division II, III Athletic Departments With Turnkey Production...
22/10/2025
Wall Street Video Summit Debuts, Bringing Together 200 Financial Enterprise Vide...
22/10/2025
Dueling Pianos: International Chopin Piano Competition Is as Competitive as a Ba...
22/10/2025
In 1995, a young Colombian artist released an album that would change Latin pop ...
22/10/2025
Over the past few months, a photovoltaic system has been installed on a three-he...
22/10/2025
The Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis II mission is stacked on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kenn...
22/10/2025
L3Harris' Hybrid SATCOM is resilient by design, offering path diversity that eliminates vulnerabilities by routing data across the best available networks i...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. Organizers of NAB Show New York said they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countries along with 260 exhibitor...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Masque Sound, a leading theatrical sound reinforcement, installation and design company, supplied an extensive gear package of professional-grade equipment for ...
22/10/2025
Lightware, a global leader in signal management and AV connectivity solutions, is seeing strong market momentum for the UCX-3x3-TPX-RX20, a compact transmitter-...
22/10/2025
MELVILLE, N.Y. Chyron has released PAINT 10.2, the latest update for its telestration platform, adding support for SMPTE ST 2110 IP workflows, expanding brandin...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON Run3TV today said NBCUniversal is joining as an investor in the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority, which develops the Run3TV NextGen TV application platfo...
22/10/2025
ATLANTA swXtch.io will feature two new networking solutions extending the company's reach across more cloud and on-prem workflows at NAB Show New York, set ...
22/10/2025
The Warner Bros. Discoverys HBO Max streaming services has increased prices for all its streaming tiers effectively immediately for new customers. Existing cust...
22/10/2025
LOS ANGELES OpenDrives has signed a new distribution partnership deal with Versatile Distribution Services (VDS) to strengthen its channel and streamline how it...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Samora Pinderhughes Brings Immersive Sound to Berklee's Signature Series The artist and composer, who's worked with Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, Co...
22/10/2025
BMI Day at Berklee Celebrates Composer Fil Eisler and Awards Scholarship to Stud...
22/10/2025
October 22nd, 2025 TRIBECA ANNOUNCES STAR-STUDDED LINEUP OF MEMBERSHIP EVENTS F...
22/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF cooperate in drone defense Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF partner to deliver a comprehensive drone defense solution combining Rohde & S...
22/10/2025
European Broadcaster Upgrades To Grass Valley's NativeIP LDX 135 Cameras And...
22/10/2025
Everyone Gets a Better Deal on Verizon with New FOX One Perk The $15 FOX One streaming service perk is yet another way Verizon continues to add savings for cu...
22/10/2025
First Look Hidden Assets Series 3
Premieres on 9th November 9:30pm on RT One & RT Player
WATCH HERE Promo Link: Hidden Assets Series 3 | RT
The Crimin...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Although AES Show Is on Its Own, Audio Will Be a Major Part o...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Business of Broadcast and Media,' Future of Content'...
21/10/2025
SVG All-Stars: Ethan Folz, Senior Director, Digital Operations and Quality of Ex...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: Livestream Offers Graphic Overlays, Predictive Gaming, Ancil...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: At the Front Bench With Producer Frank DiGraci and Director ...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: NBC Sports, NEP Build Ultra-Flexible Production Plan That Se...
21/10/2025
Indigenous storytelling has been at the heart of the work of the Sundance Instit...
21/10/2025
Top L-R: Mysterious Skin, American Dream Second Row L-R: Little Miss Sunshine, D...
21/10/2025
Last week, Spotify and Columbia Records transformed Pier 4 at the Brooklyn Army ...
21/10/2025
SBS Learn's Dharug Ngurra resource empowers classrooms to meaningfully celeb...
21/10/2025
As global operators simplify and evolve their digital platforms, NPS improvement...
21/10/2025
Critical Design Review completion is a key milestone on the path toward Wideband Global Satellite Communications certification for the network in 2026, opening ...
21/10/2025
New Australian undersea training range to implement and improve warfighting tactics, proficiency and safety; enable joint/allied training that contributes to pr...
21/10/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
21/10/2025
September, the beginning of autumn, brought an expected revival to the TV market, largely due to the new fall TV schedules. The time spent in front of the TV sc...
Live From Roland Garros: Tennis Channel Expands Hours of Coverage for its Super Bowl' With more courts covered, Tennis Channel has expanded both televised and streamed offerings By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
