Live from Malm : Behind the scenes of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 By Adrian Pennington
Monday, May 6, 2024 - 14:34
Print This Story
Following Loreen's win in Liverpool in 2023, Sweden has the honour of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest for a record seventh time.
Hosted by Swedish broadcaster SVT in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the 68th Eurovision Song Contest is set to take place in the Malm Arena on Saturday 11 May, with semi-finals scheduled for Tuesday 7 May and Thursday 9 May. The three live shows are expected to attract 162 million viewers.
SVT is working in partnership with facilities provider NEP and with Eurovision Services, the one-time broadcasting arm of the EBU but that has been owned by Munich-based venture capital firm Dubag Group since February 2023. The EBU remains Eurovision's main customer and the Song Contest the largest event it works on.
I've loved Eurovision since I was a little boy and I still have to pinch myself that I get to help produce Eurovision as a job, says Lennard Bartlett, project leader at Eurovision Services. It's a great privilege and I'm very proud of my Eurovision Services team and EBU and BBC colleagues for what we achieved together last year. Over to you SVT bring it on.
Eurovision Services provides distribution of the produced world feed and is producer of the live voting element of the final in which 37 live feeds from participating members need intricate coordination with belt and braces backup.
Speaking from the Eurovision Services truck located in the OB compound 20m outside of the Malm Arena, Bartlett says: It is the biggest live music event in the world by audience and no other show attempts live voting on this scale.
The world feed itself remains in 1080i 50 SDR after an assessment by the EBU after the 2023 event in Liverpool found there was not sufficient demand for a 4K UHD HDR (or even a HD HDR) production among its public service broadcaster community.
Bartlett: I still have to pinch myself that I get to help produce Eurovision as a job'
That said, production values are being upgraded with capture for the first time in Progressive Segmented Frame (PsF), a means of acquiring, producing and distributing a progressive scan from interlace equipment.
The intent is to add a more filmic look to performances, says Bartlett. Inside the arena you can really tell that the standards of lighting, staging and sound quality will be top notch in terms of production standards. You can see that too in monitors from the OB compound during rehearsals that this is going to be a very high-quality show.
Roe Visual is the official supplier of all LED kit for the song contest; Creative Technology Sweden is responsible for the installation.
This comprises around 1,000sqm of LED screen, including a stage floor LED of 186sqm and a backdrop LED screen of 340sqm. Hanging from the ceiling of the arena are five LED cubes totalling 460sqm.
A 6-person stage management team leads the three live shows and manage a further 36 crew who have just 55 seconds to reset the stage between each of the 37 songs. These movements have been carefully choreographed and rehearsed, just like everything else in the live shows.
Eurovision Services' facility is connected to NEP's OB truck via a Technical Operations Centre (TOC) and manages onward distribution over fibre and/or via satellite to all EBU members. Signal redundancy is provided from two teleports including one in Geneva.
Signals for the live voting components are contributed via satellite or direct fibre connection or video over IP.
We require each of the 37 participating members to provide us with a main feed and a back-up link, he adds.
It is the biggest live music event in the world by audience and no other show attempts live voting on this scale
Security is another crucial part of the Eurovision Services operation and it is the piece of the puzzle that shifts most year on year.
Bartlett explains: We can't go into detail on the mechanisms we have in force for obvious reasons, but it is an area we reassess regularly to make sure we have the latest encryption methods and that our kit is patched with the latest updates to the highest specification basically to ensure we are protected. We've taken aboard information provided by SVT, EBU and other security agencies to ensure we're operating within the evolving cybersecurity picture.
This is Bartlett's second Song Contest as project lead but the 12th for lead engineer Felix Berndt. Many of the team producing in Malm are veterans of the 2013 show also hosted in Malm and of the 2016 event in Stockholm.
We've a very experienced team and it all has a very family feel, he says. The vibe is definitely building. The city is getting prepared and hardcore fans are arriving. The Eurovision Village and Eurovision Street and other dedicated areas are buzzing. It promises to be a huge production.
In one change to the format, artists from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, plus Sweden, will each perform their entries live during the semi-finals. The so-called Big Five get a bye' into the final but will showcase their entries to viewers live alongside the competing acts.
Twenty-four-year-old Swiss rapper Nemo is the bookies favourite to win this year.
Eurovision Services are next in action in Germany for the Euros and then again in Paris at the Olympics.
More from Sports Video Group
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
28/05/2026
FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...
28/05/2026
One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
28/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...
28/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
28/05/2026
Hosted by ESPN Senior Writer Ryan McGee, the ceremony honored winners from athletic departments, conference offices, professional networks, production companies...
28/05/2026
Major rights-holders rolled out their 2026 college football slates today, offering a first look at marquee windows, kickoff partners, and conference distributio...
28/05/2026
The 4 Nations Face-Off, an international competition that launched in February 2...
28/05/2026
Soccer is a truly global sport, and, to match the U.S. viewing audience's in...
28/05/2026
The NFL Today, CBS Sports' top-of-the-line NFL studio show, has a storied hi...
28/05/2026
Prime Video is no stranger to innovation, and, within the realm of live streamin...
28/05/2026
The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, and the cheer of the crowd: those are three prime examples of the glorious sounds fans hear on televised baseball ga...
28/05/2026
Every year, March Madness captivates the entire sports world. Nonstop action, un...
28/05/2026
NBA on NBC was an integral part to live sports production in the 1990s, and, when the league made these media rights available, NBC Sports saw an opportunity to...
28/05/2026
UmpCam is a technological wrinkle that has given fans unprecedented views of wha...
28/05/2026
T-Mobile and the United States Golf Association (USGA) announced a multi-year partnership, making T-Mobile the Official 5G Network Partner of the U.S. Women'...
27/05/2026
Telestream has announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Benjamin Desbois as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Desbois, currently Teles...
27/05/2026
ESPN garnered 10 awards; NBC's Sunday Night Football received the Outstandin...
27/05/2026
Matrox Video is celebrating its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of operations from its headquarters in Montreal, Canada. Founded in 1976, the company has...
27/05/2026
Major League Baseball has announced a series of initiatives tied to America's Semiquincentennial, including a national marketing campaign, Fourth of July br...
27/05/2026
Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has announced that Brian Gross has joined the company as an Account Manager on its Audio team, based in the Burbank office. He will...
27/05/2026
Nielsen has released new research on soccer fandom ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2...
27/05/2026
ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) has unveiled a new partnership with TikTok to bring broad...
27/05/2026
FIFA's Oscar Sanchez gives a deeper look to how this tournament will be cove...
27/05/2026
The soon-to-be senior from Charlottesville is building her skills in replay, TD, and even creative content for HokieVision and its ACC Network productions
In t...
27/05/2026
FOX Sports' Mike Davies breaks down the vision for this summer's showcas...
27/05/2026
HBS's Paul King, FIFA's Oscar Sanchez preview how the masses at home wil...
27/05/2026
FOX's MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy Awards...
27/05/2026
One of the most memorable Postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...
27/05/2026
NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most decorated and most watched programs in the history of television. It added to its jam-packed trophy case on Tu...
27/05/2026
The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...
27/05/2026
With the Opening Match just over two weeks away, the entire sports-production-te...
Live from Malm : Behind the scenes of the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 By Adrian Pennington 
