Here at Gravity Media we continue to do what we can to help our clients during this difficult time. With the lack of live sporting events to cover, broadcasters are looking for alternatives to fill the empty hours on their channels.
Classic matches and programming are certainly en vogue at the moment, and we’ve been in constant communication with our clients, offering solutions to assist them in delivering programming for their broadcast partners suffering from empty schedules.
Our centrally managed digital archive management system is in big demand at this uncertain time, and allows our clients and their partners to simultaneously search, view and ready footage in any format from any location, for any purpose.
A number of our major clients – including The FA, the International Paralympic Committee, the International Hockey Federation and Tottenham Hotspur FC – are using their Media Archive Director (MAD) systems to generate content during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The major difference from before the lockdown is that now the majority of requests are for entire matches with full commentary and graphics as broadcasters look to fill their schedules and make up for the lack of live sport, whereas before Covid-19, it was always clean clips to be inserted into programmes.
In partnership with UEFA, we’re producing a weekly series of programmes, showcasing the best action from the substantial riches of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League vaults. This classic series consists of commercial one-hour programmes, ready to air, fully voiced and packaged. As well as this series of shows, we’re repacking a number of classic matches with commentary and graphics, ready to air for broadcasters and available for their online service, UEFA.TV.
We have also been servicing a huge global demand for UEFA’s content with inquiries coming into Gravity Media from all corners of Europe as well as China, Australia and the US. These vary from last year’s Champions League Final to a first-ever request for the 1987 Cup Winners’ Cup Final between Ajax and Lokomotiv Leipzig – certainly the most diverse range of requests we have ever experienced.
For The FA, we have produced a series of classic matches, giving their broadcast partners replacement programming across their postponed quarter final weekend. All production, editing transmission, playout and delivery services have been in full operation for the past fortnight.
The FA downloaded almost 150 hours of their content during April, three times the number of hours from the same time last year. One unique – albeit sad – request from The FA’s MAD system was for BT Sport’s tribute to Norman Hunter who passed away recently. We were able to find footage from the 1972 FA Cup to show Hunter both in action for Leeds United and collecting his winners’ medal.
And this heightened demand for archive content isn’t just limited to sporting federations – Tottenham’s download volume over a similar period was double last year’s levels.
So, if you have archive footage that you would like to exploit or other programming needs, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can find out more at www.gravitymedia.com or contacts us directly on enquiries@gravitymedia.com or 020 3104 0000.
