S2E10: The Sky’s the limit
What do broadcasters need to do to capitalize on the streaming revolution? And what skills do their staff need in order to deliver continuous innovation?
In this episode of the Making the Media podcast, host Craig Wilson talks in-depth with former Sky executive Darren Long to get his take on the hot topics.
Our Guest This Episode
Darren Long
After graduating from Brunel University, Darren spent seven years working at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) teaching students in television production and helping to run the NFTS TV department. Darren worked with many talented students including Nick Park (Wallace and Gromit), David Tattersall (Die Another Day, Star Wars (Episodes I, II and III) and Michael Caton-Jones (Memphis Belle, This Boy’s Life).
After leaving NFTS, Darren spent a year working in the TV industry as a vision engineer before joining Sky at the birth of the company back in 1989. He was one of the pioneers changing the way the world watches sport, overseeing the technical, operational developments and innovations across Sky Sports—from simple ultra-motion replay, HD and 3D, through to today’s interactive and digital developments that now appear in most sports broadcasts.
Darren was the stakeholder in the conception and development of the UK’s first sustainable broadcast facility, Sky Studios, which has fourteen production studios, over 77 post-production suites, and one of the biggest integrated tapeless systems in the world which runs all of Sky’s linear, online, and OTT playout.
In November 2012, Darren took over the leadership role for Sky Production Services (SPS). Darren was responsible for 760 full-time employees split across four groups that deliver key production services to all of Sky’s content creation teams—production studios, post-production, content services, and business planning & programming. The department encompasses a vast range of skills including cameras, sound, lighting, media management, graphics, and video and audio post-production.
Darren was also responsible for setting the vision for Sky’s group content operations workflow in its strategic IP program for content distribution. This program is moving all Sky’s group content operations and processing systems into the cloud and integrating into the wider Comcast businesses, ensuring everything Sky does is done in the most efficient and timely way.
Darren’s last role at Sky was as group operations transformation design in CT&I, looking at how we transform the operations as we move into these new workflows and align our business models.
Darren is also a board trustee for the British Forces Broadcasting Services (BFBS) and is on the board of the Avid Community Association.
More Resources
For more on this topic, check out:
Secure collaborative cloud editing and storage through SaaS and subscription – Discover the flexibility of Avid | Edit on Demand
All Things AI – Is AI a threat or opportunity for the newsrooms of the future?
Contact Us
Questions? Comments? Cool ideas? Get in touch: makingthemedia@avid.com or @craigaw1969. Follow Avid at @avid.
Credits
Host: Craig Wilson
Producer: Matt Diggs
Social: Wim Van den Broeck
Theme Music: Greg “Stryke” Chin
