BBC Sport Slaloms Through COVID Challenges to Carve Out a Solid Remote Production Setup for Beijing 2022

BBC Sport slaloms through COVID challenges to carve out a solid remote production set-up for Beijing 2022 By Heather McLean, Editor

Thursday, January 27, 2022 - 14:23

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BBC Sport's Jonny Bramley, executive producer for major events, outside the Birds Next Olympic venue in Beijing

BBC Sport is raring to go for the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics Games, which is fast approaching.

The public service broadcaster has been cooperating with fellow rights holder Discovery to ensure each network provides viewers with the best offering, says Jonny Bramley, executive producer for major events at BBC Sport, speaking to SVG Europe from Beijing. We've basically got two live feeds under the Discovery deal. It's the same deal [as we had in Tokyo]. What we've actively been doing is making sure that we're in an open discussion with Eurosport about our schedules so that we're not directly competing against each other.

Eurosport have got a very good winter sports offering, continues Bramley. They'll show a lot of the Nordic events; that that's quite regular for them. If they're showing some of those Nordic events we will be able to show something different, thinking about the viewer across both networks, basically.

Slaloming through the obstacles

Despite issues with freight being delivered into China as the Port of Tianjin was completely shut down when a COVID case was discovered, which delayed proceedings, Canadian company Broadcast Services International (BSI), which is carrying out the installation for the broadcaster, is doing, very well and has got BBC Sport right back on track, says Bramley.

We've tried to scale back some of our onsite operation from the couple of Winter Olympics, just because of some of the uncertainties around operating out here in China, and just some of the logistics, you know, getting around venues

The advance of the COVID variant has not changed things drastically for people working on the ground for BBC Sport, as says Bramley, everything's really tight in China and it's been a zero COVID tolerance place for a while, so [Omicron] didn't make the slightest bit of difference. Everything was really strict anyway, quarantine was three weeks up until recently for anybody coming into the country, and because we've got this closed loop system, COVID is supposed to be completely eliminated within that.

The closed-loop effectively closes us off from the public and the rest of Beijing. Even within the closed-loop we've got strict measures, so we have one-metre distancing, masks to be worn at all times unless you're physically eating or drinking, and the same thing applies in the hotel, so it's pretty strict.

The IBC is part of the newly built Main Media Centre (MMC) facility in Beijing, adjacent to the existing China National Convention Centre that was home to the media during the Beijing Olympic Games 2008. The MMC is within walking distance of the National Stadium, National Aquatics Center and the National Indoor Stadium, three legacy venues from the 2008 Olympic Games that have been renovated to host the Ceremonies and ice sports competitions during the 2022 Winter Olympics

Unfortunately, this closed-loop means that broadcasters are not able to get around the city to get local colour to give viewers at home a taste of where the Games are being held. However, host broadcaster Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), working with the Chinese Olympic Committee, is providing footage including B-roll of the city, country, cultural events and aerial drone shots of the venues for broadcasters to use.

Adds Bramley: At least in Tokyo, once you went through a two week quarantine period you were free to actually go out into the city and film. This is very different in the fact that you literally can only go between your accommodation and the Olympic venues. So OBS and the organising committee have released footage. We are able to use that to get a flavour of the place. Also, we'll certainly do what we can in the venues themselves.

While several asymptomatic people from broadcasters have tested positive for COVID on arrival in China and are still in quarantine, Bramley believes this is because of the rash of booster vaccines given over December in the UK, and that the Chinese testing kit is more sensitive. This has also caused issues for the broadcasters, who do not have surplus staff at hand to replace those in quarantine.

Bramley explains: It is just not viable to fly extra [people in] just in the event that they might be needed; you can't really justify that economically and we've also got a limited number of accreditations.

However, the Chinese have implemented a fast turnaround visa process to enable broadcasters to replace approved crew who have tested positive before they flew to China.

The Bird's Nest Olympic venue in Beijing, ready for the Winter Olympic athletes to begin competing on 4 February

Remote production for maximum control

The broadcaster is producing its Beijing 2022 coverage using a mainly remote production model. BBC Sport is well-versed in doing this for Winter Olympics' as the events are smaller than Summer Games' which tends to make it simpler to arrange to have more people off-site.

Says Bramley: For the Winter Olympics, we've tended to operate in a remote way for a number of years, actually, so in a way there is nothing new. As it's not quite as big an event as the [Summer] Olympics it's harder to justify having the whole team on site. This means we can actually manage the production remotely in our existing BBC production space in MediaCityUK, which was very different for the Olympics; just the sheer scale of a Summer Olympics means we've got to expand the Salford operation, which isn't fit for purpose

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