Live From Wimbledon: Game, Set and Match to WBS With Second Championships as Host Broadcaster

Live from Wimbledon: Game, set and match to WBS with second Championships as host broadcaster By Heather McLean, Editor

Tuesday, July 9, 2019 - 10:13

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One year on from Wimbledon Broadcast Services' (WBS) successful debut as host broadcaster for the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) annual Championships and the atmosphere is far more relaxed.

After taking over from the BBC's 90-year run as host last year, WBS has settled comfortably into its role after the mammoth project that saw a multi-million-pound rebuild of the broadcast centre and update of all services for the 2018 Championships, working with technical partner NEP.

Speaking to SVG Europe, head of broadcast and production, Paul Davies, said: We're evolving the whole time; it's evolution not revolution. What we did last year was pretty groundbreaking and we were very confident we could deliver it, but we didn't try to overdeliver. We knew we were starting this year from a very good template in terms of doing the 18 court coverage, and 4K on Centre Court.

For 2019, the goal has been to refine the core of what was implemented last year, noted Davies.

There's no need to innovate for innovation's sake; we've got a really good, robust system now and it's about tweaking it and adding little things, subtle things, just to enhance it for the broadcasters.

The basics were in place and we're clearly going to keep those, but we looked at every other aspect in review; we have this famous thing called the list', where every element of the production is looked at from the smallest detail to the biggest one, and for all the broadcasters, not just the host output; for everybody around the world, [the question is] how can we improve their coverage?

The WBS team, Paul Davies, Bethan Evans and Tom Giles in the quality control room of the broadcast centre, AELTC

So we start from our perspective thinking what can we give to them to improve that, and that's based on feedback from [the broadcasters themselves].

Commented broadcast technical manager, Tom Giles: We did so much last year that most of the changes this year and most of what we've been doing are internal, making processes smoother for rights holders, and making the communication strategy better.

Giles went on: There's no need to innovate for innovation's sake; we've got a really good, robust system now and it's about tweaking it and adding little things, subtle things, just to enhance it for the broadcasters.

Giles said that this year, he was far more relaxed about the start of the Championships following last year's launch of WBS as host broadcaster.

On the technology side, you've done all the hard work. You've proved it works, obviously, and you've got that consistency of the engineering teams of NEP, you've got the consistency of us at WBS operations, so from my side it's pretty comfortable in terms of getting on air.

However, he added: There's always nuances and stuff that stress you out and there are always things you want to improve on.

Birds eye view

Wirecam supplied by ACS in action

The big technical story this year at the Championships has been one of those improvements of coverage for broadcasters; a wirecam from ACS. Davies said that even 10 years ago, when he and Evans were at the BBC and Giles was at NEP, there's always been the aspiration to have a wirecam at Wimbledon .

He went on: We're always very respectful of not interfering with the play, so we would never put a Spidercam on Centre Court, in the way that the other Grand Slams have. The Australian Open and the US Open, they have a Spidercam on their main show courts. We feel that interferes too much with play and the spectators' experience, so whilst we wouldn't do that, we always knew that a wirecam either across the grounds or adjacent to would offer these incredible images.

It was just incredible that we got the green light on the practicalities of doing it, then for the Club and the Board to agree to the aesthetics of it and actually doing it, it was rewarding, Davies went on.

The narrow walkways are packed with spectators as soon as play starts, and the wirecam brings some of that atmosphere to viewers at home

Getting that green light from AELTC to erect the wirecam was a challenge, Davies stated: The ACS wirecam at 381 metres long is the big headline for us this year, in many ways, first in terms of getting Club approval to erect [the] two 33 metre towers. The view from the Royal Balcony from the Clubhouse is a very protected vista and whilst we have the 72 metre hoist which was to the right as you looked out, we have moved that, which cleans up that look from that balcony but by its nature we had to put that pylon [for the wirecam] somewhere so we put it [and its fellow] on the golfcourse.

The hoist moved this year from the north of the grounds to the south, which has not only meant broadcasters have access to a more open view of the entire geography of the grounds, but they also get stunning shots at sunset with spectacular light and shadow.

AELTC acquired the golfcourse opposite in December last year. However, it is continuing to operate as a golfcourse until 31 December 2021, and so there were still many checks and permissions needed in order to erect the pylons for the wirecam, including checking the density of the soil to ensure the pylons did not subside.

Giles said the surveys for the wirecam towers were in-depth and out of his usual work remit. He explained: I've never spent so much time interested in soil. [For the towers] there had to be ground surveys to know how much force you can put down on the soil and how much weight you can put on the ballasts to keep the towers up.

I almost had a little party when we got the numbers ba

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