PARIS — In Australia, Nine Entertainment holds significant holdings in various media sectors and was a rights-holding broadcaster for the highly anticipated 2024 Paris Olympics. In 2019, the company acquired the Macquarie Media Radio Network, and through this acquisition, radio played a crucial part in the Games' coverage. Michael Sammut, the head of technology and operations for Nine Radio, emphasized the pivotal role played by Tieline in delivering successful coverage to Australian audiences. "TV and radio operate independently yet come together to achieve synergies throughout the network," he stated.

Independent Operations with Synergies

For instance, TV operations are centralized in North Sydney, while radio operations are based in Pyrmont. Incoming host broadcast feeds from the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Paris were sent to North Sydney and then restacked to be fed to the Pyrmont studios for use across the radio assets. Around 12 Tieline hardware codecs were employed for radio coverage in different roles. Additionally, Tieline codecs were used for the network's STL and outside broadcast links.

Live Breakfast Shows

Nine's 2GB breakfast show with Ben Fordham and 3AW's breakfast show with Ross Stevenson and Russel Howcroft were broadcast live from Paris during the first week of the Games using Tieline ViA and Gateway 4 codecs. These are two of the biggest breakfast shows with a massive audience, and the Tieline codecs ensured flawless audio every day. 3AW used a combination of bonded cellular and LAN connections with the ViA. 2GB's show was live from the Trocadero via a Gateway 4 over a dark fiber link to Australia. Moreover, Nine had several reporters working from various venues around Paris using Tieline's Report-IT app for live contributions.

Communication Upgrades

Communication was of critical importance for Olympic coverage. The team realized during the lead-up that they needed more coordination circuits than available at the venues. They are in the process of upgrading their infrastructure and have built two data centers for a new operational model. Although the centers are not yet online, Gateway 4 codecs have already been installed. These codecs were used to send and receive communication circuits between venues such as the Stade de France for athletics and the opening and closing ceremonies and the La Défense Arena for swimming.

Custom Setup for TV Broadcast Team

When Nine's TV broadcast team saw the setup, they reconfigured some of their commentary audio systems to match it. Michael Sammut, the head of technology and operations for Nine Radio, played a crucial role. At each stadium, the mix-minus from Sydney was sent via dark fiber to the hub at the IBC. OBS then routed this to each stadium and it arrived at the commentary positions into an AEQ comms box. Onsite, they used the I/O to route this into one of their ViA codecs. Commentary headsets were attached to the ViA, allowing them to add compression and EQ to the mics before connecting them back to the AEQ unit as a complete mix. They could also connect the codec back to their studios in Sydney using the 3x mono profile for individual channel control.

Built-in Flexibility

William Todd (known as Toddy in the industry), Nine's broadcast IT systems architect, was on-site in Paris for setup and the Games. At each stadium, the mix-minus was sent via dark fiber to the hub at the IBC. OBS then routed it to each stadium and it arrived at the commentary positions into an AEQ comms box. Once on-site, they used the I/O to route this into one of their ViA codecs. They attached commentary headsets to the ViA, which allowed them to add compression and EQ to the mics before connecting them back to the AEQ unit as a complete mix. They could also connect the codec back to their studios in Sydney using the 3x mono profile to give individual channel control of each position. This flexibility enabled them to send talkback to each commentator individually and PTT reply on the unit. The main mix of the commentary was sent to the ViA's XLR outputs and fed back to the AEQ unit and then routed back to OBS and embedded with the vision to be sent via dark fiber to Nine's TV studios at Denison Street in Sydney. These TV studios are SMPTE 2110 compliant. To extract audio from this network, they utilized Tieline Gateway 4 codecs, which then connected and streamed audio to Gateway 4 codecs at their radio studios.

ViA's Valuable Features

ViA's record and playback functionality was highly valuable in Paris. If two events were simultaneous, one could be recorded locally and replayed after the first event finished. ViA codecs were also used to prerecord TV voiceovers at Nine's Trocadero studio for later use. William Todd and Harish Samineni were on the ground in Paris, and their efforts along with Tieline were crucial for the success. At such a large event, getting everything up and running is always a challenge, but they were extremely happy with the radio coverage. Tieline's Gateway and ViA codecs were a cornerstone of their success throughout Paris 2024, and they look forward to using them at future events.A long-time media enthusiast who is addicted to radio, TV, web, and press, the author claims that not a day goes by without him listening to the radio. Since 2019, he has also been a volunteer at SUN, where he writes a weekly column. This article originally appeared in French radio publication La Lettre Pro.