Communications via intercom for small armies of production-crew members on sports broadcasts systems is a hugely complex undertaking, and new tech platforms coming to market are designed to make it efficient.
The business side of intercom isn't simple, either. The past year has seen a number of significant M&A moves, including Clear-Com's purchase of Trilogy and Riedel's acquisitions of Delec and ISL Intercom. Like other M&A activity in broadcasting and in media in general, these moves are part of a response to a television industry nearing its next technical inflection points: networked IP and wireless distribution and related changes in workflow.
CoachComm, which designs, manufactures, and markets wireless intercom systems for sideline communications for collegiate sports, will exhibit its Pliant Technologies CrewCom at NAB 2017. The new platform takes the most salient aspects of wired comms and puts them in a fully functioned wireless environment, with up to 200 full-duplex users and up to 1,024 conferences available without the need for a dedicated matrix.
Until now, the wireless aspect of intercom has basically been an extension of the wired intercom, explains Pliant Global Sales Manager Gary Rosen. In traditional intercom design, partyline systems have offered limited functionality but are simple to lay out and have high reliability; in a matrixed design, you have a lot of functionality but at significantly greater expense. [CrewCom] is more like traditional audio routing: with conferences, you can assign any single user, group of users, or external source to anyone on the system but without needing a matrix to do so. The CrewCom beltpacks allow direct control over four separate conferences at one time. The RF components on CrewNet work like a network appliance, so the system is not limited to any specific frequencies.
Category Drivers: At-Home Production and a Broader Sports Field
Two related and significant trends are affecting intercom development, deployment, and application: the shift to at-home/REMI approaches to production and the growth of second and third tiers of collegiate sports. Both are putting more reliance on IP-based signal transport, the latter resorting more and more to the internet as its main infrastructure.
Clear-Com's HelixNet networked system is targeting sports broadcasts at non-NCAA schools, according to Vinnie Macri, product outreach manager. Colleges like the University of Hartford, UMass at Lowell, Eastern Michigan University [are] great schools, but they don't have the kind of budgets that the top-tier schools have as a result of deals with major broadcast networks, he notes. Instead, they're building remote production in Sprinter vans with HelixNet and Ross switchers for a half million dollars, a fraction of what the top-tier schools are doing.
That, says Macri, is building a foundation that leverages the internet and a campus-wide LAN infrastructure, which is already in place for a wide range of curricular and extracurricular activities, for a robust and competitive broadcast-sports universe full of content-hungry outlets, notably streaming and secondary cable channels.
He adds that the proliferation of interfaces that can convert an audio and video signal to an IP stream - such as Iptec's VNP series network processors, which have been used along with HelixNet by several broadcast networks in proof-of-concept demonstrations - lay out an attainable architecture for these school's sports programs.
With platforms like these, he explains, schools are networking their campuses, putting a broadcast center in the basketball arena, and producing football and soccer shows from there or sending the van out to another school, calling the show remotely using four channels of comms.
Riedel's Christian Diehl: It's not a matter of if' but a matter of when,' but we're still at the beginning of moving to an IP-based model.
IP and Wireless Evolutions
According to Christian Diehl, product manager, intercom products, Riedel, the growth of smaller-market verticals for intercom systems, including regional sports broadcast, is propelling smaller and less expensive system designs and products. It's also helping move the sector more deeply in the wireless and IP-based domains. One area of growing interest is in allowing intercom systems to extend to integrate personal devices, such as smartphones. Riedel will launch that capability, via Bluetooth connectivity, at NAB 2017 in April, Diehl says.
Although the IP evolution increasingly appears inevitable - a quick visit to Dale Pro Audio and B&H websites indicates how diverse that category has become, especially in the GHz-frequency ranges - Diehl says that, at least in broadcast, the crossover will take a while.
Analog audio has been around for a hundred years, and technologies like AES3 and MADI have been in place for a relatively long time, too, and are deeply embedded, he says. The implicit advantages of IP-based signal distribution will make themselves known over time, but broadcasters still want to make that transition at their own pace, he says. It's not a matter of if' but a matter of when,' but we're still at the beginning of moving to an IP-based model.
Diehl is similarly confident that wireless intercoms - Riedel's Acrobat digital wireless product leverages the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard's base layer - will be more widely used in broadcast, and he hints that there may be some announcements relating to it around the time of NAB 2017.
But he also cautions that, as more professional wireless application are pushed further into the GHz range, the ability to manage that increasingly crowded part of the spectrum will require more cooperation by manufacturers and users. No one
Most recent headlines
01/01/2026
Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Announces 2026 Noel Schajris Scholarship The scholarship will cover tuition and housing for one Berklee College of Music stud...
01/01/2026
New year, new games, all with RTX 5080-powered cloud energy. GeForce NOW is kicking off 2026 by looking back at an unforgettable year of wins and wildly high fr...
31/12/2025
Back to All News
NFL Christmas Gameday on Netflix Scores Again With the Lions-V...
30/12/2025
As the College Football Playoff Enters the Quarterfinals, ESPN Blows Out Its Meg...
30/12/2025
SVG's Best of 2025: Original ArticlesTake a look back at all our coverage of big-time productions, game-changing technologies, and state-of-the-art new faci...
30/12/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., Dec. 30, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) will release its fourth quarter 2025 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, J...
30/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
30/12/2025
It marked the first civilian operational authorization for a HAPS flight in Europe, led by Space42's subsidiary, Mira Aerospace
The flight demonstrated HAP...
29/12/2025
San Francisco 49ers Strike Gold With Halftime Laser SpectacularStunning display caps $200 million renovation of Levi's Stadium techBy Dan Daley, Audio Edito...
29/12/2025
The Cup's Around the Corner: An Inside Look at Broadcast Preparations for th...
29/12/2025
SVG's Best of 2025: Longform VideoWatch the standout keynote conversations, deep dives, and panel discussions from the year for free on SVG PLAY!By Brandon ...
29/12/2025
From crisper Lossless audio and immersive music videos in beta to new Audiobooks+ plans, custom transitions between tracks, and in-app Messages, we keep levelin...
29/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
27/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
26/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
26/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
25/12/2025
Holiday lights are twinkling, hot cocoa's on the stove and gamers are settling in for a well-earned break.
Whether staying in or heading on a winter getawa...
24/12/2025
What is AI good for? Posted by MTI Film on December 24, 2025
What is AI good for?
What is AI good for?
It's been three years since ChatGPT first cap...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
The Boyfriend' Season 2 Unveils Heartwarming Trailer, Key...
24/12/2025
Back to All News
Love, Fights, and Everything in Between: Badly in Love' Returns for Season 2
Entertainment
24 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied t...
24/12/2025
Scripps Research study links sleep variability with sleep apnea and hypertension How consumers' digital activity trackers could enable personalized health s...
23/12/2025
How guilas Cibae as Dominican Winter League Games Are Locally Produced for Glob...
23/12/2025
BitFire's Jim Akimchuk on Supplying Scalability and Customization in the Clo...
23/12/2025
CAMB.AI Enables European Athletics to Offer Multi-Language SupportPlan is to eventually offer translation into all languages spoken in EuropeBy Ken Kerschbaumer...
23/12/2025
Analysis: As sports media values trend negative, scarcity and quality are king By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Monday, December 22, 2025 - 14:08
Print ...
23/12/2025
ESPN, Disney, and NBA Return to the Animated Altcast Fray With Second Edition of...
23/12/2025
End the Year on a High Note and Donate to the Sports Broadcasting Fund Today!By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Tuesday, December 23, 2025 - 12:25 pm
P...
23/12/2025
The year is winding down, the weather outside is frightful, and it's the perfect time to escape into a story that warms the heart. For listeners looking for...
23/12/2025
A Zeus motor is hot fire tested at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, solid rocket ...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Lightware will exhibit several major product innovations at ISE 2026, including the new USB-C BOOSTER-V1, Google Meet. integration for various Taurus UCX models...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's The Great Flood and Culinary Class Wars 2 Top Gl...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things By the Numbers: How the Global Phenomenon Shap...
23/12/2025
Experience the power of WO Automation for Radio's newest service, the System Effectiveness Review. Designed to help you achieve more, a System Effectiveness...
23/12/2025
23 Dec 2025
VEON's Beeline Kazakhstan and Rakuten Symphony Collaborate to A...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
How Steamy Can It Get? Single's Inferno' Season 5 Pre...
23/12/2025
Back to All News
33 Million Global Viewers on Netflix Watched Jake Paul vs. Ant...
Communications via intercom for small armies of production-crew members on sports broadcasts systems is a hugely complex undertaking, and new tech platforms coming to market are designed to make it efficient.
