London 2012 Olympic Games

المَمْلَكة المُتَّحِدة

BBC News

What we do

BBC News needed a fully functioning studio facility near Olympic Park, in time for the hotly anticipated 2012 London Olympics Games.

Leading broadcast solutions provider Gravity Media – then branded Gearhouse Broadcast – was selected to provide the BBC with the systems integration of a Master Control Room and three studios, in a joint venture that saw the BBC provide communications and control systems.

Located 23 floors up on the roof of the Lund Point building in Stratford, East London, the broadcast facility was used to transmit the 1pm, 6pm and 10pm News, as well contributions to the Breakfast News programme during the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Gravity Media was also contracted to provide studio facilities for World and local London News.

What we used

Gravity Media’s team of experts, who had previously worked on the Beijing Olympic Games, handpicked a range of high performance equipment known for reliability, compatibility and quality.

The Master Control Areas for engineering and quality control comprised of test and measurement equipment from Tektronix, and Panasonic Vision Mixers.

Routers selected for the project included the Pro-bel Sirius 800 video router. Harris equipment was selected for the HD distribution and glue products. Equipment for the studios included Sony HDC 1500 Cameras and Canon lenses.

The build took six Gravity Media specialists six weeks to complete.

In addition to this work, Gravity Media provided the BBC with ancillary services for the Games, namely, Project and Logistics Management and Technical Support. Operational crew members provided included Engineers, Audio Engineers, Communication Engineers, Vision Controllers and Riggers, some of whom were permanently on site for the duration of the event.

Outcome

As expected, this project was a huge undertaking for the joint venture, but one that paid off. Screening the news from Olympic Park helped convey the excitement, hype and atmosphere of the Games.

Meanwhile, London 2012 saw the BBC achieve record levels of viewing and internet access – fulfilling the corporation’s aspiration to deliver the first truly digital and mobile Olympics.

Close to 52 million people watched the Olympics for at least 15 minutes, the BBC said, making the Games the biggest national television event since the current ratings system began.

The studio facility was kept in place to broadcast the Paralympic Games which ended on 17th September 2012.

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