1. What was SKY’s strategy to guarantee business continuity during the Covid-19 crises?

Protecting our people has been, at all times during this emergency, our number one priority. 

While doing that, we have been working to continue to provide our customers with the best content experience. Sky has put almost all of its employees in smart working since February 24^th, two weeks ahead of the government-imposed lockdown on March 8^th. From that day, the area of Content Tech and Operations that I manage has 90% of its people working from home.

A part of the Broadcast world is heading towards the SMPTE 2110 format, a well-known standard proposed by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers - above all- because it was created with the aim of sending digital video over an IP network.

The novelty compared to the past is in the fact that the video data are conveyed on IT infrastructure in an uncompressed format and the video, audio and ancillary data travel on different and separate streams.

With a small aerospace metaphor we could say that up to "yesterday" IP technology was rather "parked" on a slow but progressive development orbit, which followed a course of regular, constant diffusion, without particular accelerations.

IP enters into orbit

Today, in the first months of 2020, the crisis caused by coronavirus has forced to deeply examine all the production procedures of the television production, post production and delivery and one of the most evident results was a decisive acceleration of IP technology that makes remote production and from home operation possible.

What were the main reasons for creating Eurovision Services?

One of the key reasons for establishing Eurovision Services was the need for flexibility. We are owned by the EBU, which is a public-funded organisation and quite rightly has strict rules on governance. But to operate as a commercial entity, we needed the flexibility and agility to be able to take our own decisions without, for example, needing to wait for one of the EBU’s two annual general meetings to approve them.