Sky News Arabia Adopts Viz Mosart

Long-time Vizrt client Sky News Arabia has adopted market-leading studio automation software Viz Mosart as it moves away from a manual process-based approach in its newsroom.

Driving efficiency and simplifying workflows were the primary factors behind Sky News Arabia’s decision to adopt Vizrt’s Viz Mosart automation software.

The development marks a further continuation of a long relationship between the successful news broadcaster and Vizrt. Sky News Arabia uses multiple products from the Vizrt product portfolio at its studios in Abu Dhabi, including Viz Trio for CG graphics, Viz World for maps, Viz Artist for graphics design, Viz Arc for augmented reality (AR) graphics, and Viz Engine for graphics rendering and playout.

Studio automation had been on the radar of the Sky News Arabia team for some time before the addition of Viz Mosart. As a broadcaster who is always keen to push the envelope and embrace new technologies, Sky News Arabia was aware that evolving its newsroom from entirely manual processes could yield serious improvements in efficiency.

Suresh Kumar, Director of Technology at Sky News Arabia, recalled: "When we first investigated studio automation, we realized it wasn’t really used in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) region where our headquarters are based, so we did not have a frame of reference. Our workflows are more complex than many broadcasters in other regions, with the need for multiple language broadcasts of the same content. We like to tackle technical challenges, so while some studios may adapt their workflows to suit studio automation, we wanted to adapt the studio automation system to our existing workflows instead."

In particular, the studio automation system needed to be supportive of changes to content right up to the point of distribution. "We have a very dynamic newsroom and given the nature of the business, we need to be prepared for last-minute changes," said Kumar. Integration and preparation

Ultimately, several factors pushed the team in the direction of newsroom studio automation, and Viz Mosart in particular. Above all – and in line with a long-term policy to improve program quality and reduce errors – it wanted to enhance the consistency of their output.

Secondly, its existing use of Vizrt products meant staff had familiarity with the brand and there would be a reduced need for preparatory training. Thirdly, the team had the opportunity to see that Viz Mosart was being used effectively by other companies in the Sky group, including Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland.

And finally, Viz Mosart revealed itself to be flexible and intuitive, and supportive of easy integration with other key systems, such as the Avid iNews Newsroom Control System (NRCS).

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