Arquiva Serves World Class Communications For Tennis Masters

A company that provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio and wireless communications in the UK and has a growing presence in Ireland, mainland Europe and the USA, Arqiva has announced that it is providing TV broadcast distribution services for the 2008 ATP Masters Series on behalf of ATP Media.
Arqiva has already provided distribution services for seven of the tournament's 10 international legs, most recently in Cincinnati this August.
ATP Media produces live coverage of every match from every ATP Masters Series event, providing its broadcast partners with up to five live feeds including a fully produced World feed, a News feed and dedicated court coverage of the main and second court action. These feeds are multiplexed and uplinked directly from each venue.
ATP Media is the broadcast arm of the ATP Masters Series, the premier series in the men's game, and the prestigious season-ending finale, the Tennis Masters Cup.
The ATP Masters Series is made up of nine major tournaments from around the world - Masters Series Indian Wells, Sony Ericsson Open Miami, Masters Series Monte-Carlo presented by Rolex, Internazionali BNL D’Italia Roma, Rogers Masters Canada (Toronto/Montreal), Western & Southern Financial Group Masters Cincinnati, Mutua Madrilena Masters Madrid, BNP Paribas Masters Paris and, from 2009, Masters Series Shanghai.
The latest news means that a multiplexed broadcast signal is delivered to ATP Media's broadcast partners using Arqiva's lease space on Eutelsat W1 for Europe and the Middle East and Intelsat-9 for the Americas.
Arqiva's Winchester teleport provides the turnaround service between the two satellites and also passes the feeds via a number of dedicated fibre links to London's BT Tower. Arqiva, on behalf of ATP Media, also operates a dedicated helpdesk in the heart of Arqiva's Winchester MCR which provides broadcasters with immediate technical support to ensure a smooth transmission.
Steve Plasto, Chief Operating Officer of ATP Media said: "ATP Media is the largest producer of tennis in the world, generating more than 1,000 hours of live coverage every year from Europe, North America and Asia.
"This needs to be delivered to major broadcasters all over the world so we looked to Arqiva's extensive experience in broadcast transmission, along with their global infrastructure and satellite capacity, to ensure this happened smoothly and securely.
"The ability to locate our helpdesk at the heart of the international broadcast chain was another benefit that gave our broadcast clients further confidence in our ability to deliver the transmission."
Matthew Ivey, Director of Occasional Use for Arqiva's Satellite Media Solutions division, added: "The ATP Masters Series is one of the world's most popular and prestigious sporting series and it is important to ensure reliable transmission to audiences all over the globe.
"We are proud to be playing a key role in this process and are looking forward to further expanding our relationship with ATP Media," he said.
(BMcC)