AN INDEPENDENT REPORT FROM LYONSDOWN, DISTRIBUTED WITH THE DAILY TELEGRAPH September 2016

facebook.com/biznessreporter [email protected] 5 How instant football highlights sparked a technological revolution at ITN studios

Joanne Frearson IGITAL TRANSFORMA- talks to the TION is changing the way Dfootball fans watch the broadcasting Championship. ITN, which pack- company about ages together content for the how outsourcing to Football League, is using new digital technologies to provide a data centre saved this footage for the fans in real time and money time, as well as giving them highlights not long after the game across the board finishes. “Technology used by broad- casters is continually advancing,” says Bevan Gibson, CTO of ITN. “We had a project to provide live recording as well as editing for the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2. We had to make 10-min- ute highlight packages of each game, which needed to be deliv- ered very shortly after the final whistle.” Up until this point, goals high- Producing fast turnaround highlights for football games led lights from League football ITN to consider outsourcing other matches were traditionally shown pieces of key infrastructure later on a Saturday or Sunday night on programmes such as The Equinix and rented some rack small percentage of that Services, “in the past you typically Football League Show. ITN needed space to house its equipment so infrastructure.” built a digital system as a discreet to find a way that could provide it could deliver content quickly The goal for ITN is to eventu- application and you put all the them right after the game ended. to football fans. 1,813 ally have no equipment at its infrastructure behind it and it Historically the broadcast Using the Equinix data centre, central London location, moving was usually living in a silo. Data equipment at ITN has been very production footage can be trans- it instead to a co-location environ- didn’t transition quickly between near to where the production ferred between media outlets in ment or public cloud. the divisions. The number company is based, at Gray’s Inn a faster-than-real-time process, of Football “We are going to have to have “Digital transformation is Road in London. But in order to through fibre networks. ITN now League games a very good reason,” he says. about stopping thinking about bring the football footage out plans to use this type of service ITN produces “Why would you install in Gray’s vertically integrated silo technol- each year quickly, ITN needed to upgrade to deliver content for its other Inn Road over a co-location en- ogy to move towards horizontal its existing in-house infrastruc- services. The company has a range vironment? We don’t want systems that can provide multiple ture or use a different system. of production businesses and anything there because it is not purposes for a business.” “We looked at how we could makes news for ITV, Channel 4 cost-effective. That means all A co-location also has the provide this service and one of and Channel 5. other parts of all business, includ- advantage of having other media the options was to increase the Gibson says: “Our approach ing news and 60-minute factual outlets such as Sky, Channel 5 size of the infrastructure we have going forward is to put a base documentaries and the other and the BBC in the building, which at Gray’s Inn Road,” he says. “We level of our infrastructure into a series we create. means ITN can distribute its traditionally built infrastructure co-location such as Equinix and “We will look at increasing material to them quickly, creating to support peak events. But the bursts into public cloud providers any investment of any sides of a business ecosystem. cost of having all these locations like Amazon, Google and Micro- those businesses in the future Gibson says: “That is one of connected live, and having the soft Azure to pick up that and we will look at alternate the benefits we found and the highlights edited shortly after load when you have big off-premises locations for that reason why, with the Football the game, was just not possible events that come up. equipment. It will be eve- League, we went down the because the cost associated with “We need to better rything we do in the next Equinix route because a number doing so did not make commercial utilise the equipment that couple of years. of other media organisations we sense and no one was willing to we have and build a sys- “That is the key in need to deliver content to are also pay for that. tem for that peak load transforming the busi- Equinix customers. “The second option was to look day. That might be for a ness. That may mean “We can interconnect with at putting some equipment in a massive news story. That it is more cost-effective their infrastructure and they can “Digital transforma- shared location not available at might be for an election. for us to get into other interconnect with ours within Gray’s Inn Road, where the costs It might be for a big sport- markets that may have that same facility, in a far more tion is about stopping per square foot were more effec- ing day. Strategically, been less accessible in economical fashion than by run- thinking about verti- tive than doing it in more central what we are doing with the past. It means custom- ning a full-time connection from cally integrated silo London.” Equinix fits into our ers that are requesting those ourselves to their facility. It is a technology to move ITN eventually decided that roadmap really well. services from us can media meeting point.” towards horizontal sys- the best way to deliver content “You think about it from get a better product for Renting rack space from data tems that can provide for the 1,813 Football League a news perspective – you build a cheaper rate essen- centres now enables media com- games it was to produce each year a system for a one-in-five-year tially, and that is where we see panies to provide their customers multiple purposes for was to use a data centre or co- event, and most of the time when the transformation.” with material at a far more agile a business” – Michael location service. In 2015 it you are doing run- According to Michael Winter- pace – and just as importantly, at Winterson, Equinix approached data centre provider of-the-mill daily news it uses a son, managing director of Equinix considerably less cost.