Successful cooperation between PLAZAMEDIA and Deutsche Telekom extended by four years – extensive playout services for MagentaTV for the UEFA Euro 2024

Arnim Butzen, Head of TV at Deutsche Telekom: ”We are delighted to continue our long-standing collaboration with PLAZAMEDIA. In doing so, we are creating continuity and are relying on proven quality. The requirements for sports broadcasts in our extensive MagentaSport portfolio and for major soccer events such as the upcoming UEFA Euro 2024 on MagentaTV have increased significantly in recent years. As the leading digital company in Europe, we want to continue to lead the way as a driver of innovation in an increasingly digitalized environment. Our brands should stand for excellent and innovative sports coverage. We are convinced that with PLAZAMEDIA we have the right partner at our side.”

Jens Friedrichs, Chairman of the Management Board of PLAZAMEDIA GmbH, explains: ”With our offer, we were once again able to convince Telekom of PLAZAMEDIA's performance, innovative strength and sustainability. We will continue and further expand our successful partnership until at least 2028 – we are already in the process of implementing the major joint project UEFA EURO 2024. We would like to thank them for their trust and look forward to continuing our journey together.”

Playout for the UEFA EURO 2024

The European Soccer Championship in Germany will be a mega event for all soccer fans. The DFB team is dreaming of winning the title at home and PLAZAMEDIA is part of the biggest soccer event of the year as a service provider: Deutsche Telekom’s MagentaTV will be showing all UEFA EURO 2024 matches live from June 14 to July 14 and presenting an extensive range of programs. PLAZAMEDIA GmbH is providing the playout for the three Magenta EURO 2024 channels Fußball.TV 1-3 and associated services from a single source. This includes the planning and technical concept, the required production technology and the production staff. At the heart of the broadcast are all 51 live matches, tactics feeds, conferences, reaction shows combined with the studio broadcasts produced in Cologne at RTL as well as broadcasts to a studio on the Fan Mile in Berlin. Production will take place in UHD HDR and HD SDR formats. In addition, various streaming derivatives are produced, recorded and archived for external rights holders. In total, more than 40 signal paths have to be controlled.

PLAZAMEDIA expands service portfolio for Telekom

The cooperation between PLAZAMEDIA and Telekom, which has now been extended, includes the commission to implement up to 1,400 live matches of various sports for linear TV every year. This includes the live broadcasting of individual matches and conferences, as well as the recording and management of all linear non-live elements (replays, highlights, slomo playouts). It also includes operational personnel and multifunctional IP production units for handling live productions with commentary, graphics and content feeds, as well as the provision of conference control rooms for the implementation of conference broadcasts and a central media asset management platform. These services are supplemented by a comprehensive signal management service: All content relevant to production is received centrally as satellite, fiber optic or streaming signals via the Ismaning site. The same applies to the delivery of broadcast signals to the Telekom headend and third-party utilizers.

PLAZAMEDIA will continue to provide Telekom and Magenta Sport with innovative and reliable support. The range of services will be expanded by, among other things, virtualizing production methods even more. The PCR services will also be upgraded to include additional gallery functions, commentary cameras and the option of multiple parallel conferences. The provision and operation of VOD encoding and packaging technologies will be handled by PLAZAMEDIA in future. This includes replays and highlights of all matches and magazine videos. The streaming services will also have even greater capacities and extended functionalities in terms of stream monitoring and stream manipulation. In addition, Telekom will have access to the diverse possibilities of the fully IP-based studio infrastructure for classic, hybrid and virtual studio productions in the innovative PLAZAMEDIA Studios, the briX|woRk.studio XR LED Stage and the innovative ILLUSIONEER Studio.

Attached are photos of Jens Friedrichs (Copyright: Thomas Wieland) and Arnim Butzen (Copyright: Deutsche Telekom) for free editorial use within the scope of reporting.