BBC Outside Broadcasts sets the pace for marathon coverage

BBC Outside Broadcasts has covered The London Marathon for BBC Sport since it began in 1981. For the 2007 event it is using six production units, 35 cameras, six bikes, two helicopters and an overhead circling plane to capture the race, as more than 30,000 people pound the streets on the 26.2 mile course from Blackheath to the Mall. There will be six hours of live coverage on BBC ONE on Sunday 22 April, plus two Interactive streams and an evening highlights programme on BBC TWO.

Five outside broadcast sites will be located at Blackheath, Canary Wharf, Tower Hill, Cutty Sark and The Mall and will send feeds back via satellite or digital links to Television Centre for mixing and transmission. The feeds will also be available to BBC Interactive Channels and other broadcasters.

BBC Outside Broadcasts is using four mobile cameras on motorbikes: two covering the men's elite race and two on the women's. A further two motorbikes will carry reporters equipped with radio mics and talkback facilities, to report on the race as it progresses.

Coverage will be enhanced by two helicopter cameras with long lenses and digital links, delivering aerial shots. A Skylink plane will be used to relay signals from the motorbike cameras to BBC Television Centre. Whilst helicopters need to refuel every two hours, the Skylink plane can fly 20,000ft above the city for up to eight hours, so all four motorbike feeds can be offered without interruption to the viewers at home via the BBC's interactive service.

The main hub of the broadcast operation will be in Studio Five at BBC Television Centre. This is where all the material will be fed into and where videotape, timing clocks and graphics will be added as required. Dave Gordon, Head of Major Events and Executive Editor of the London Marathon, will be working with Executive Producer Martin Webster, who will direct the multitude of sources. Lead BBC Outside Broadcasts’ Engineering Manager Robin Stonestreet will also be located in Studio Five, to manage the digital radio camera output quality and coordinate the re-fuelling of the helicopters. The commentators, Steve Cram, Brendan Foster, Paul Dickenson and Tanni Grey-Thompson, will also be based in Studio Five so they can cover the race from beginning to end. Sue Barker will present to camera from the course.

Over the years BBC Sport and BBC Outside Broadcasts have honed their coverage of The London Marathon, building on their experience. The course has not changed since 2005, when runners were taken away from the potentially slippery cobblestones by the Tower of London and an outside broadcast site was established at Canary Wharf, to reflect the changing face of Docklands. 2007 sees more fine-tuning of camera positions, reflecting the directors’ desires to get the best angles on the action and the most out of the locations. For example, the camera positions at the Cutty Sark have been altered to avoid shots of the building work taking place there and camera positions at Canary Wharf have changed too, as the production’s familiarity with the location has grown.

The London Marathon is a complex operation, with effectively six different outside broadcasts operating at the same time, all feeding back to Television Centre. Making sure that broadcast quality signals are delivered is crucial. The communications aspect of covering the race also presents a key challenge: Ensuring that all the outside broadcast sites can hear and be heard by the director and the central production team in Television Centre and that the motorbikes, helicopters and plane have effective talkback facilities at all times is difficult but essential.

Overview of the Outside Broadcast Sites:

Blackheath: The Start

Seven cameras will capture the marathon runners as they head off. BBC Outside Broadcasts’ Unit 8 production vehicle and VTR control room will be used. Steve Whitaker is the Engineering Manager. Steve recently worked on The Grand National from Aintree.

Cutty Sark

BBC Outside Broadcasts’ compact production unit R16, which can uplink pictures direct to Television Centre, will use four cameras to capture runners as they travel round Cutty Sark. Engineering Manager Dave Ratcliffe, whose recent credits include the Six Nations and the FA Cup, will lead a small team of 11.

Tower Hill

Seven cameras will cover the race at Tower Hill, with Engineering Manager Dave Chapman leading a team of 22. BBC Outside Broadcasts is working with OB facility provider Bow Tie, who are proving a production unit. Tower Hill will provide two outgoing circuits offering coverage of the two course passing through the area. Dave has worked across a variety of genres, supporting music and drama projects such as The Quatermass Experiment, the 2007 Dancing in the Street production from Trafalgar Square, as well as regularly covering football matches, darts and horseracing.

Canary Wharf

BBC Outside Broadcasts’ Unit 25, with 8 cameras, will capture the runners as they pound through Canary Wharf. BBC Outside Broadcasts’ Engineering Manager Donald Begg will work with a team of 19 riggers, vision supervisors, vision engineers, camera supervisors, camera operators, jimmy jib operators and assistants, sound supervisors and sound operators. Donald’s recent credits include Match of the Day and the FA Cup.

The Mall: The Finish

Adrian Kingston is the Engineering Manager overseeing the Finish Line, where two BBC Outside Broadcasts trucks will be used to support coverage: Unit 12, with 8 cameras, will cover the action as runners cross the line, whilst Unit 23 will be used to cover the stories of marathon runners after the race. There will also be additional cameras at the Horse Guards, to catch runners once they are less out of breath, when they collect their kit bags.

Adrian is being supported by a team of 22 riggers, vision supervisors, vision engineers, camera supervisors, camera operators, sound supervisors, sounds operators and VT engineers. Adrian is the lead Engineering Manager for Wimbledon and also recently helped deliver coverage of the athletics in Glasgow and Birmingham.

BBC Sport’s coverage of the London Marathon 2006 reached a peak of 4.3 million viewers. Coverage was seen in nearly 200 countries, with live coverage of the race shown across Europe, Asia and Africa. The BBC has secured the rights to cover the event until 2010.

-ENDS-

About the London Marathon  

TX TIMES: 0830 - 1400 BBC ONE LIVE

0855 - 1600 BBC INTERACTIVE

1745 - 1835 BBC TWO HIGHLIGHTS

INTERNATIONAL OFFER: 0855 – 1210/15 (BST)

RACE OFF TIMES: 0900 Women's Elite

0925 Men's & Women's Wheelchairs

0945 Men's Elite


About BBC Outside Broadcasts

For more information visit www.bbcresources.com/ob

For further information, please contact:

Georgie Hollett, PR and Communications Manager, BBC Resources
Tel: +44 (0)20 8576 2250
Mobile : +44 (0) 783484 5612
Email : georgie.hollett@bbc.co.uk