
Wimbledon 2024: Whisper expands offering with enhanced access All England feed By Jo Ruddock
Friday, July 12, 2024 - 08:57
Print This Story
(L-R): Harry Allen, Joe Bennett and Lauren Kirk
Now in its second year as Wimbledon Broadcast Services (WBS) Production Partner, Whisper has added to its offering with an enhanced access All England feed designed to help broadcasters get viewers closer to the players.
Harry Allen, senior producer at Whisper, explains: The idea is that the broadcasters have a feed that they can access that basically tells the story of the players' day. So we'll get them arriving we've added a rackable shallow depth of field camera at the player arrivals area so that we can get them getting out the car and coming into the building and we're not struggling with light changes and things like that. Then we follow them using remote cameras as they make their way through the club and we pick them up at the other end on another shallow depth of field camera when they go to practice.
Additional robotic cameras are then on hand to capture the players taking their practice shots.
It's given broadcasters a really rich opportunity to follow their players' journey through the day. And they don't normally have access to this coverage whatsoever, he adds.
Read more Wimbledon 2024: All-new ESPN broadcast centre adds flexibility and focus to coverage
The footage has been particularly popular this year given the interest in key players such as Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic who have been battling to return from injury in time for this year's championship.
With Andy Murray this year, people were devouring that content because it was almost like as soon as he was on site, people wanted to know about it. The same with Djokovic when he first arrived. When he hit for the first time, it was kind of a big deal, says Allen.
In addition to making content available for broadcasters on site, Whisper also creates clips and makes them available on a web-based service that can be accessed anywhere. This was done when Aryna Sabalenka pulled out of the competition on the first day.
That was one of our most downloaded clips. We found that it's a good combination of some of our really creative features but also when the news breaks you can see the real spike in downloads. When she pulled out, we basically just clipped up everything she'd done that day. So that everybody can then, if they're having a studio chat, say well, let's have a look at what she looked like on the practice court earlier'. Things like that I think broadcasters have really enjoyed, being able to analyse those elements.
The Murray moment
Undoubtedly one of the biggest talking points of the championships so far, however, has been Andy Murray's farewell, and Whisper was at the heart of ensuring this was both fitting and moving.
The Andy Murray moment was a huge effort with everybody involved, says Allen. It was full of uncertainty in terms of when it was going to happen, how it was going to happen. But rewinding months, the moment itself and the video that we created for it was quite a long time in the making. You've got to hand it to the club, because they've got these incredible relationships with the players and the fact that they can get Nadal, Federer, Venus Williams and Djokovic sitting down paying tribute just shows the warmth that they feel towards the championships. We were filming in New York, Mallorca and London as well as at Wimbledon and it wasn't green screen, it was all authentic.
Joe Bennett, creative digital lead at Whisper, adds: That was the biggest task going into the champs, especially in the last month, six weeks, knowing that we were going to have to deliver that moment that everyone's been waiting for for years.
It was great for us to be involved in that, but the pressure to make sure we got it right tonally and figuring out how you could tell his story and career within three, four minutes, it was massive. It wasn't just the VTX production, it was the wider coordination that went alongside it too.
Allen continues: We elicited the emotion that we set out to, which was we want people to be emotional about this moment and we want people to remember what an incredible career Murray had and how special it was actually seeing a Brit winning Wimbledon. It was a satisfying moment to see our work, because so much went into it.
Whisper has also been tasked with telling Wimbledon's sustainability story this year - something both parties take very seriously.
Wimbledon are very proud of their sustainability credentials as is Whisper, so it's quite a good match in that perspective. We did some sustainability features last year, but this year we tried to make a much more concerted effort to do more pre-planning with the sustainability team here to create content that we felt would resonate with audiences in an authentic way, but still getting the message across, explains Allen.
We looked at some of the things that ATP Media have done with players and tried to engage with the players as much as possible.
One example is a scavenger hunt with players on walkie talkies, controlling a reporter who was trying to find the six key sustainability features at Wimbledon. The players were competing against each other to see who could get the six items into their cart the fastest.
It's really simple, but it's a way of engaging people in a fun way while seeding the messaging in there as well around what Wimbledon are doing, he says.
Bennett concludes: This was our second year [as production partner] so we've built up that trust with the broadcasters. Obviously we came in last year, knowing that we could deliver high-quality features and content, but if you're a broadcaster that's got it
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
03/04/2026
Winning in the new media economy: Avid showcases AI-powered, connected intellige...
03/04/2026
NUGEN Audio CEO Dr. Paul Tapper to Lead Presentation About Dialog Intelligibilit...
03/04/2026
NAB Show 2026: PlayBox Neo Highlights Workflow, Security, and IP Advances
Brie Clayton April 2, 2026
0 Comments
PlayBox Neo will showcase the latest i...
03/04/2026
For Taku Hirano, Everything Is Connected From touring and composition to teaching and instrument design, the in-demand percussionist sees it all as one body o...
03/04/2026
Berklee Honors Humberto Ramirez with Master of Latin Music Award The alumnus and acclaimed trumpeter is honored for his influence as a performer, composer, an...
02/04/2026
HBO and NFL Films have announced Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Seattle Sea...
02/04/2026
Haivision has announced the Makito ONE, a single-blade video encoding and decoding platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform combines dual-channel video encoding...
02/04/2026
Telestream has introduced UP.Lens, a cloud-based multiviewer and monitoring serv...
02/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (Booth C5220, April 19-22, Las Vegas Convention Center), marking the company's 60th anniver...
02/04/2026
Net Insight has introduced programmable Trust Boundaries, a feature integrated i...
02/04/2026
Bitmovin has announced support for SGAI (Server-Guided Ad Insertion) in its playback products, using HLS interstitials. SGAI combines elements of client-side an...
02/04/2026
Riedel Communications' SimplyLive RiMotion R12 replay system is supporting B...
02/04/2026
LTN, a managed IP video transport company, and Ateme, a video compression and de...
02/04/2026
Harmonic has announced that TDF, a broadcast infrastructure operator in France, has deployed Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor and ProStream X Video S...
02/04/2026
Eluvio and the United Rugby Championship (URC) have announced first-year results...
02/04/2026
The Kansas City Current and Scripps Sports have announced that ION will broadcas...
02/04/2026
ESPN will debut Courtside at the Women's Final Four Presented by AT&T, an alt-cast airing Friday, April 3 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and Sunday, A...
02/04/2026
The Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA) and Shure Incorporated are ...
02/04/2026
ESPN's MegaCast Coverage of 2026 NCAA Women's Final Four Begins Friday, ...
02/04/2026
DAZN has announced the launch of DAZN Playmakers, a global influencer program designed to build a network of sports content creators. The programme will give cr...
02/04/2026
Tony Cole, Jessica Lee shift into new roles reporting to ESPN SVP/Content Operations Chris Calcinari....
02/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
02/04/2026
Real-time tracking, virtual production, and Pixar storytelling converge for Apri...
02/04/2026
NASA's long-awaited Artemis II mission has launched four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the moon, marking the first manned launch toward the moon sin...
02/04/2026
(L-R) Molly Belle Wright, Wyatt Solis, and John Magaro appear in Omaha by Cole Webley, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. (Photo courte...
02/04/2026
4 - 11 April 2026
VEMIA's latest gear auction is just around the corner, and there's already a wealth of sought-after instruments and studio gear li...
02/04/2026
Little Labs emulation now available to all
The latest Universal Audio plug-in to become available outside of the company's DSP-powered UAD2 platform has...
02/04/2026
SBS Welcomes Back Cup Fever! For The Biggest FIFA World Cup Ever
2 April, 2026
Media releases
Santo Cilauro, Ed Kavalee and a host of special guests retur...
02/04/2026
Truth. Power. Perspective: NITV's Flagship Current Affairs Programs Return t...
02/04/2026
L3Harris has successfully powered the historic launch of the Artemis II mission, providing propulsion and avionics....
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Already deployed extensively by NBC Sports, FOR-A Corporation will demonstrate GoVertical! AiDi, the real-time 9:16 autocropping feature of viztrick AiDi, durin...
02/04/2026
Interra Systems, a provider of end-to-end quality assurance solutions for the digital media industry, announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its B...
02/04/2026
Harmonic's Media Processing Solutions Maximize Bandwidth Efficiency for Terrestrial Broadcast Delivery
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that TDF, a...
02/04/2026
NBC Sports Deploys viztrick AiDi to Stream Live Events in 9:16 Mobile-First Formats with Auto Tracking, Development Signals Strategic Shift for FOR-A
Long reco...
02/04/2026
Evergent will showcase new innovations in subscriber lifecycle management and monetization at NAB Show 2026 (Las Vegas, April 18 22), including:
New advances i...
02/04/2026
Riedel Communications is proud to be part of Binghamton University, State University of New York, Athletics' milestone year, celebrating the university'...
02/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have today announced new, fully managed, cloud-native Master Control services designed to meet the growing operational demand...
02/04/2026
Avid today announced it will showcase new innovations designed to help media companies win in the new media economy at NAB Show 2026 (April 18 22, Las Vegas Co...
02/04/2026
PlayBox Neo helps AIS PLAY kick-off premier football content direct to fans
PlayBox Neo has provided MIMO Tech with a brand-new major installation to extend it...
02/04/2026
Globo has transitioned its primary content distribution to Secure Reliable Transport over a fully IP-based managed backbone using Synamedia's Quortex PowerV...
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/04/2026
Student Spotlight: Al-Fadl Salem The Danish singer recently performed for the queen of Denmark.
April 1, 2026
By
Editorial Staff
Image by Junia Morrow
Wh...
02/04/2026
Taku Hirano's Career Is Defined by Identity Whether he's performing, composing, teaching, or developing instruments, the do-it-all percussionist sees ...