tech-i: Congratulations on your award! How did you feel when you learned that you had been selected?
Yannick Olivier: Thank you, it’s amazing! Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it at all. I’m really proud to receive this award – it’s a great recognition of the work we’ve been doing at France Télévisions. Funny story: I didn’t even know I’d been nominated! So when Antonio Arcidiacono called to tell me the news, I thought it was some kind of prank. Luckily, I recognized his voice and his Swiss phone number!
tech-i: The award recognizes, in particular, your work on developing and deploying infrastructure for advanced audio and video formats. What are the main projects you’ve been involved with?
YO: I had the good fortune to work as a technical architect on the full production and distribution workflow for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, all based on SMPTE 2110. It was a full 360° job: everything had to be aligned – production, transmission, broadcasting, and distribution – all in less than 10 months. A small glitch in one area could have affected the entire workflow, so I had to fine-tune every last detail. The big challenge was implementing new solutions for our live productions: UHD/HDR, NGA audio, the 2110 transmissions, DVB-T2/HEVC/AC-4 distribution… a lot of firsts for us.
tech-i: Do any particularly memorable moments come to mind from this work?
YO: The Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony was certainly an unforgettable moment. It was absolutely stunning, and we could even catch a glimpse of it from our control room at France Télévisions HQ, where we were working in a fully remote production setup.
tech-i: What brought you to France TV originally?
YO: When I was 15, the director of the local public TV station in my hometown (France 3 Besançon) offered me a three- day internship to discover how TV works and I was hooked from the start. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to work in television, and especially for public service media. I did everything to achieve this goal.
tech-i: Where would you like to focus as your career develops over the years ahead?
YO: I’m really into the technical side of things, and I love learning new stuff. I hope to keep working on large-scale system architecture and taking on complex, high-impact projects like DMF, the EBU Dynamic Media Facility initiative.
tech-i: What are your passions away from the workplace?
YO: It might sound a bit clichéd, but I really do see my work as a passion, so it’s hard to disconnect completely. With some good TV industry friends, we have a small association with a mobile production unit. On weekends, we do some production – pulling cables, operating cameras, mixing feeds. It’s a great way to stay grounded and remember why I got into this field in the first place.
tech-i: Do you have advice or suggestions for senior managers in media companies who want to provide better support to young technologists?
YO: Trust young people and their ideas, even if they sound a bit disruptive. I was lucky enough to experience that kind of trust at France Télévisions, and I think it really paid off. Back in 2020, I suggested trying a small pilot project with ST 2110. Not many people believed in it, except for my managers, who supported me fully. And in 2024, we used 2110 to deliver the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics, which became the most-watched broadcast in French television history, with 24.4 million viewers. That’s quite amazing!
This article first appeared in the September 2025 issue of tech-i magazine.