Several EBU Members have recently engaged in ambitious projects to design new national or regional headquarters. Seventeen project managers and team members from nine Members, including South Korea's KBS, came together this week under the auspices of a new interdisciplinary strategic programme FCP (Flexible Content Production for digital audiences).
The goal of the meeting was to discuss and compare different approaches to developing a new broadcast media facility and to identify the kind of support the EBU could usefully provide. The event was kindly hosted in Munich by Bayerischer Rundfunk and was moderated by Brigitta Nickelsen (ARD/Radio Bremen).
Future-oriented thinking
To quote the words of a representative of Belgium's VRT, a new broadcast media facility should be “an example of future-oriented thinking driven by innovation and efficiency” and it should “give users the feeling of an open campus”. This sums up well the key issues and questions that came up during the meeting: how to design flexible work environments and public spaces; how to promote innovation and a new corporate culture through interior design and floor planning; and what production workflows and editorial processes to set up.
The discussions ranged over many topics, including architectural approaches and timelines, and the identification of key technology trends such as UHD, data journalism, cloud, asset management and integration.
Each Member presented an overview of their organization's project, the timescale to completion and the challenges identified. Several participants mentioned that, while their project may have started with a focus the interface between architecture and technology, it soon moved into a major change management initiative. In the final round of discussions, the Members present expressed a clear wish to use the new FCP programme as a framework under which to share experiences as their projects develop and to engage in common activities together.
Flexible Content Production is jointly run by EBU Technology & Innovation and the Eurovision Academy.