
Paris 2024: Inside WBD's Olympics broadcast operation By George Bevir
Friday, August 30, 2024 - 10:24
Print This Story
Studio 1 at WBD House with a view of the Eiffel Tower
Matt McDonald, group SVP EMEA Broadcast Services for Warner Bros. Discovery, explains how the broadcaster delivered thousands of hours of Paris 2024 content to linear channels and online platforms across Europe.
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) enjoyed a stellar Summer Olympic Games, reporting record viewership and engagement across its many platforms and channels.
Shortly after the closing ceremony on Sunday 11 August, WBD said it had achieved a cumulative reach of more than 215 million in Europe viewing Olympics content on WBD's platforms (23% more than Tokyo 2020), including Max and discovery+, as well as its Eurosport TV channels and free-to-air networks in Norway (TVNorge), Sweden (Kanal 5) and Finland (Kutonen, TV5).
In total, WBD aired more than 3,800 hours of live content, providing outputs to 47 rights territories, with 59 linear channels including 46 Eurosport channels across Europe in 19 languages and a digital offering (Max, HBO Max or discovery+, depending on territory) provided viewers with every moment - peaking at 54 parallel events on the busiest day. Plus, specifically for Paris 2024, seven HD pop-up channels and one UHD pop-up channel made available to 34 affiliates and partners across Europe.
Capturing, managing and delivering all that content was a mammoth task, and leading the department responsible for broadcast operations and technology across Europe was Matt McDonald, group SVP EMEA Broadcast Services for Warner Bros. Discovery (pictured above).
Our operations teams executed brilliantly to enable our editorial teams to tell the stories of the Games
Speaking with SVG Europe at the WBD House studio facility at Hotel Raphael during the Games, McDonald says there were two main elements to preparing for Paris 2024: the on-site prep (including the build of WBD House and the other on-site production facilities such as the mixed zones, venues, and the NOC houses), plus the scaling up of WBD's European sports platform.
He says: We have an enormous 2110 capability based upon two tech hubs, one in London and another in Hilversum in the Netherlands. They support our two main operational hubs, in London (Chiswick) and Paris (Issy-les-Moulineaux) that provide core capabilities for all EMEA. These hubs also provide studios and galleries, plus we also have 10 other production hubs across Europe (Munich, Milan, Stockholm, Oslo, Lisbon, Madrid, Hilversum, Warsaw, Copenhagen and Stockley Park) and for Paris 2024, we also had engineering support and some post-production out of Atlanta in the US.
The main thing for us is that the two main operational hubs run everything bookings, MCR, ingest, media management, playout so those are the centres of the operation and Paris has made all the difference for us during the Olympics, he says.
With previous Games taking place in China, Japan, South Korea and Brazil, Paris 2024 was a home fixture' for WBD, which has its EMEA HQ in Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the south of the city. The fact it was a local Games not only provided a boost to viewing figures thanks to the favourable European time zone, but because WBD already had such an established site and ready-made production facility in Paris it also provided the opportunity to reduce its presence at the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC).
WBD's base at the IBC on the other side of the city consisted of a small footprint manned by 28 staff across two shifts to provide the on-pass of host broadcaster Olympic Broadcasting Services' (OBS) feeds of the Games.
Stand up positions: Eurosport presenters prepare to go live
The Paris location also provided a chance for WBD to showcase the city's landmarks, with WBD House overlooking the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. With four studios used by production teams from the UK, Sweden, France, Poland, Italy and Germany as well as three stand-up positions used by WBD's global news network CNN, and live broadcasts for Spain, Finland and Denmark, plus a bar area with three RF cameras and a Technocrane, the studio was a sizable facility. This was in addition to Eurosport France operating a separate studio at Club France in the Parc de la Villette.
And it was the build of the rooftop studio that provided McDonald and his team with arguably their biggest challenge, he says. It's a working restaurant on top of a prestigious hotel, so we had a very, very limited period to take everything off the roof and then get everything up here that we needed, and then assemble it. The build was four days, so that was a challenge of planning and organisation that involved a lot of pre-build, and then there was a plan that literally went in 15-minute blocks over four days to make sure everything happened seamlessly.
From its position on the 7th floor of the Hotel Raphael, WBD House was treated as an extension of WBD's core network with each of the 11 territories producing content in WBD House able to remote produce from their homebase galleries, for example for Germany via Munich, and Poland via Warsaw.
We're fully 2110 for this Olympics for the first time and I think what we're seeing now is a much more mature, reliable, robust state, so that it works in an end-to-end fashion. It's a lot more hardened, a lot more secure, a lot more robust.
Camera racking and vision control for WBD House was managed remotely from Stockley Park, while audio line-up and control was managed remotely from Chiswick Park. AR graphics were remotely managed from Stockley Park apart from the Swedish team which remotely managed a spin-off of WBD's Cube studio technology from their home-base setup in Stockholm, with live tracking data being r
More from Sports Video Group
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...
03/04/2026
Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...
03/04/2026
Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer.
The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...
03/04/2026
Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...
03/04/2026
Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics.
Mol...
03/04/2026
Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...
03/04/2026
Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...
03/04/2026
Live Vertical Video automatically track the action on the court via AI technology and delivers a fully optimized, 9 16 live feed for viewers...
03/04/2026
As the Illini make their first trip to college basketball's biggest stage si...
03/04/2026
After last summer's Softball National Championship victory and last week'...
03/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
03/04/2026
Eight games across four tournaments will be played in three venues; accommodatio...
03/04/2026
The Ottawa Senators and Bell Media have announced a long-term rights extension for regional Ottawa Senators games on TSN and RDS. TSN Radio 1200 remains the exc...
03/04/2026
Massive production in Phoenix running out of Flagship Mobile unit, Features 50+ ...
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...
01/04/2026
As sports media organization continue to seek out new ways to streamline their p...
01/04/2026
The SVG GFX Forum hit New York City earlier this month for a day packed with sessions focused on the creative strategy and technology behind today's cutting...
31/03/2026
MeyerPro delivered the LED production for the Microsoft Ignite 2025 keynote at Chase Center in San Francisco, using more than 2,700 ROE Visual panels across mul...
31/03/2026
The Media Coding Industry Forum (MC-IF) is expanding membership outreach in 2026...
31/03/2026
ViewLift and MyOutdoorTV (MOTV) have announced the launch of ViewLift Conversational AI Search on the MyOutdoorTV platform. The feature enables natural language...
31/03/2026
The Atlanta Braves and Gray Media have announced a multi-year agreement to simul...
31/03/2026
Gravity Media has delivered broadcast services for TAB Golden Slipper Day at Rosehill Gardens on March 21 and will now cover The Star Championships at Royal Ran...
31/03/2026
Synamedia has announced that Mileto Tecnologia, a Brazilian pay-TV operator, has selected the Synamedia Go platform for its OTT expansion. Mileto is also deploy...
31/03/2026
KMH Integration will attend NAB Show in Las Vegas with a focus on what the company calls AV Casting - an approach built on the idea that professional AV and bro...
31/03/2026
Prime Video will carry live coverage of the first and second rounds of the 2026 Masters Tournament, beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET on Thursday, April 9 and Friday, A...
31/03/2026
The NHL and its U.S. and Canadian broadcast partners have announced a collaborat...
31/03/2026
Daktronics has partnered with Wake Forest to manufacture and install a new end z...
31/03/2026
The National Football League has announced that Las Vegas will host Super Bowl LXIII in 2029 at Allegiant Stadium. The announcement was made at the NFL Annual M...
31/03/2026
The NFL has announced a partnership with TMRW Sports to develop and operate a professional flag football league for women and men. The league will launch with i...
31/03/2026
Sennheiser's Spectera wideband bidirectional wireless system was used by bot...
31/03/2026
Sports Studio Inc., the company behind Free Live Sports, has announced the formation of an Advisory Board with five media and technology executives.
Each of o...
31/03/2026
PSSI and Appear have announced a new phase in their collaboration, with PSSI deploying Appear's X Platform to upgrade its mobile fleet and PSSI Internationa...