Evan Shapiro: Media’s “inbreeding” crisis is stunting its future

IBC

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Evan Shapiro delivered a forceful critique of modern media leadership at the WorldSkills Café 2026, arguing that the industry’s long‑standing reliance on “inbreeding” a narrow, elite talent pipeline has become a structural threat to its survival.

Keynoting the opening IBC2026 event, the Media Cartographer said, “The sector is now led by executives drawn overwhelmingly from the same socio‑economic backgrounds, the same universities, and the same cultural experiences, creating a leadership class unable to adapt to rapid technological and audience change. 

Overall, 59% of senior leaders in major media and tech companies come from just 34 universities worldwide, institutions attended by only 1.1% of the population in Europe and the US. Graduates of these schools are 50 times more likely to reach the C‑suite than the average university student. “95% of the people running the most powerful companies in the history of the world come from upper‑middle‑class or dynastic wealth.” 

This concentration of privilege, Shapiro argued, has produced executives insulated from the realities of their own audiences. “No one’s in the room who grew up too poor to afford Netflix and HBO,” he said. That absence, he added, directly contributes to repeated strategic missteps: abandoning advertising during the streaming boom, chasing identical business models, and now leaning on AI‑driven layoffs as a default response to financial pressure. 

Shapiro compared the current state of media leadership to the decline of the Habsburg dynasty that collapsed after centuries of intra-marriage. 

“Culturally impotent. Strategically daft. Absent anyone who will tell them bad news.” The result, he said, is an industry that “can’t get ahead of its own curve,” resisting change until the last possible moment and then rushing en masse toward the same “shiny object”. 

The consequences are visible across the sector. Pay disparity between executives and workers has widened dramatically, with the average media CEO earning 652 times more than the median employee, and more than 1,100 times the pay of film and TV crew. Meanwhile, companies have cut investment in staff development by 67% over six years – a trend Shapiro called “illogical” in a sector dependent on creative and technical expertise. 

He was particularly critical of the rush to replace workers with AI. “Intelligence is more valuable than artificial intelligence,” he said. “Actual humans to run your AI are going to be vital, or your company will be destroyed as a result of it.”  

Shapiro’s prescription to invest in talent. “It’s just so obvious,” he said. “Stop taking money out of talent development.” Companies must diversify not only demographically but socio‑economically, he argued. “If you do not have people around you who didn’t grow up in great wealth, you’re not going to have a room full of people who know how to tell you ‘no’.” 

He urged companies to hire creators directly. “Put a creator mindset in your company,” he said. “Someone making five episodes a week probably knows how to solve problems better than someone sitting in an air‑conditioned room looking at spreadsheets.” 

Ultimately, Shapiro argued, “If you want to avoid the media groupthink epidemic then you need to surround yourself with people who come from lived experiences.” 

He was not alone in urging media companies to draw from a more diverse talent pool. 

“Groups that contain only ‘people like us’ lose their edge, while diverse groups gain a huge, often decisive advantage,” said Lisa Opie, Chair, ScreenSkills and Chair, Ravensbourne University. “In an era where users control their entire suite of services from a remote or a console, we have to put them at the centre of everything, including decision‑making. So while it’s tempting to focus only on mid‑career progression and not entry‑level, we cannot afford to ignore young people. 

If investment in talent is not addressed, Opie warned, “we could lose the expertise we’ve built and that leads to unemployment, declining quality and falling productivity.  

“Get it right, and we can build a more inclusive, more talented and more secure workforce that drives growth, opportunity and investment in every community.” 

Opening the event, Carrie Wootten, Co-Founder, Media Talent Manifesto, said, “The pace of change across our industry is only accelerating, but the way we attract and develop talent hasn’t kept up. How do we prepare the workforce of the future? Is there an opportunity to ensure we genuinely have that diverse pipeline of talent that we still desperately need? The World Skills Café is a forum for all of those conversations.” 

Launched in 2025, World Skills Café is now expanding into a multi-channel global broadcast spanning news, sport, film, and culture, providing hands-on experience across the full media workflow. 

CNN’s Alex Charalambides: Truth will become the asset

IBC

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Alex Charalambides, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for CNN brings  digital reinvention to the IBC2026 stage

The global news industry is wrestling with profound questions about trust, technology, and the future of editorial independence. For CNN, those questions are not theoretical. It is a prize in the pending $81 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros., with the possibility that the 46-year-old cable network will itself be merged with CBS as well as have its editorial distorted by political interference.

Alex Charalambides who is Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for CNN, is careful to avoid the politics but stresses, “The most important thing for us is to search for the facts and report the facts as we understand them, and how they affect the people on the ground. If it's important to our audience, we want them to understand it. In some cases that may be opposite to what is being reported out of the administration but at the end of the day, we're focusing on trying to find the truth and the facts and make sense of those.

“It's really challenging,” he admits. “I consider it a privilege to be part of CNN because I get to see behind the scenes on something that is somewhat of a global phenomenon. And I see how much importance our teams put on being objective and maintaining their editorial independence on things that in some cases can be tricky and raise people's ire. That is a risk journalists across the world face every day.”

CNN, a huge global brand with a broadcast legacy, has a mandate to serve audiences whichever platform they are on and increasingly through AI‑driven interfaces that did not exist five years ago.

At IBC2026, Charalambides’ keynote will outline how CNN is navigating this convergence, and how technology is reshaping the way news is produced, verified, distributed and consumed.

“The goal is to set CNN up for the next 40 years,” he says.

At a crossroads

For decades, CNN’s broadcast operation and its digital products evolved in parallel, each with its own workflows, teams and technology stacks.

“Now we are at an inflection point where the separation between broadcast and digital is no longer sustainable,” says Charalambides who joined the organisation four years ago.

The launch of CNN All Access at the end of last year marked a significant step in bringing those worlds together, he says. The direct‑to‑consumer product is available on ten CTV platforms and recently expanded to Amazon Prime Video Channels, giving CNN a unified digital presence that complements its broadcast footprint.

“The goal is to ensure that CNN presents itself as a single brand with a consistent identity, regardless of where the audience encounters it.”

It has expanded into new verticals, including a dedicated weather app that launched earlier this year. More iterations are planned, each designed to bring CNN’s editorial expertise into areas where the brand has licence to operate.

“The aim is to strengthen the relationship between CNN and our audience,” he says.

Building trust with technology

The core of that relationship is trust. Charalambides believes CNN will not just survive but thrive in an age where trust in mainstream news is under pressure globally.

“Trust is going to become much more of a valuable commodity as we go deeper into the next decade. Brands like the BBC, CNN or Reuters will actually become more valuable for people to validate what they're hearing and understand if what they're seeing or reading is true.

“So rather than taking a partisan viewpoint [we will continue] trying to help our audience make sense of events that are happening around them. I think it's important to stay true to what the brand stands for which is to be as objective as possible when reporting the news.”

From a technology standpoint, he emphasises the need to build products “that don’t feel like you're being presented with bait-and-switch options. It should be transparent why certain content is being prioritised, and that we're not using spammy functionality to drive ad experiences. The more premium we can make our products feel, the more trustworthy they will be.”

AI complicates matters. The organisation is exploring content provenance and watermarking technologies though nothing has yet been deployed publicly. Charalambides sees provenance as an essential part of the future of news, especially as synthetic media becomes more sophisticated.

AI in the newsroom

CNN maintains “humans in the loop” for all decisions that shape what the audience sees at the same time as AI is being used extensively across the organisation.

“For any business in the world today, your entire staff has to reskill in many ways. There are few companies on this planet, especially larger corporations like ours, that shouldn't be thinking that way. The expectation at CNN is that everyone is leveraging AI to help them where it can be beneficial to improving productivity or effectiveness. It is never seen as replacing judgement, but taking some of the more manual and laborious tasks out of the day so you can be more productive.”

Vertical video is a prime example. CNN has developed tools that automatically extract clips, identify key moments and prepare assets for short‑form platforms. But humans still review those outputs to ensure accuracy and editorial relevance. Similarly, Charalambides says AI can analyse large document troves and email archives – “think of the Epstein trials we're following”  — allowing journalists to surface patterns or details and extract information “that we probably would have missed just because of the enormity of the data.”

“My team’s job is to make sure that the tools we build provide as little friction in the creative process as possible while still providing insight into things that could make the article or video better.  Over the next year, we're doing a lot of work in that space to support our editorial colleagues.”

Personalisation is another frontier. “Historically, personalisation meant recommending related articles or videos based on user behaviour. It goes deeper now. Audiences may want a quick text summary of the day’s events, a short vertical video briefing, or a personalised list of top stories depending on their context. We are exploring how to deliver those formats without compromising editorial integrity.”

The global challenge of reporting

Charalambides acknowledges the economic pressures facing news organisations, where budget constraints have made overseas reporting and long‑form investigations more difficult. CNN’s global bureau network gives it an advantage, but technology still plays a critical role in coordinating assignments, managing story pipelines, and providing visibility into who is working where.

“We have centralised systems that track story development, assignments and communications across teams. As those systems evolve, they will incorporate more contextual understanding of storylines, helping editors and producers make faster, more informed decisions.

“AI agents may eventually assist in monitoring communications, surfacing relevant updates, and identifying which systems are performing which functions. Such a shift will become more mainstream.”

A career built on reinvention

Charalambides’ perspective on these challenges is shaped by a career spent rebuilding and modernising media organisations. At Business Insider, he helped transform a startup editorial site into a global media platform, building a bespoke subscription and syndication engine. 

Before that, at Time Inc., he rebuilt the Sports Illustrated engineering team and then expanded his remit to oversee all digital brand technical teams, including Time, People and Entertainment Weekly. Within a year, he unified 25 brands onto a single front‑end platform.

His career began after serving in the South African military, when he co‑founded LiveTechnology, a startup that launched mar‑tech platforms for Fortune 500 brands. He established a US headquarters, expanded globally, and rose to Chief Operating Officer. That entrepreneurial foundation still informs his approach today.

What he wants from IBC2026

While Charalambides has been to Amsterdam many times (CNN has an engineering hub there) this will be his first visit to IBC.

“I'm coming with curiosity. I want to meet new people, connect with peers in the industry and learn as much as I can. I’m looking forward to conversations around the challenges they're facing and approaches they're adopting. Hopefully I can bring that back to my team and use that to further develop the strategies we're working on as we go into next year.”

Sony blames pre-order surge for FX5 delay ahead of October release

RedShark News

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Sony says that pre-order demand is behind the FX5's latest delay, with around 7000 orders still to clear before October shipping.

Long trailed and with rumours of production issues, the FX5 is on show at IBC with delivery planned for mid‑October, although you may have to wait longer than that to get your hands on one.

The new model in Sony's Cinema Line fills a gap between the FX3 and the FX6 and is apparently so in demand that the firm's production line couldn't keep up.

"If you order now, you'll be on the list, but because we already have a lot of orders, that means your unit will likely arrive toward the end of the year or early next year. We've had far more demand than expected," Reiko Beitz, Sony expert, told RedShark.

"My advice is simple: order now. If your name is on the list early, you can probably get it in October. If not, it'll be later, because we need to fulfill all the pre‑orders from August first. We've already had around 7000 orders. So yes, we're in a bit of a backlog.

"We're still working to make it a fully polished, high‑quality product, and that takes time," he added. [Conspiracy theorists, start your engines. A DRAM shortage is the latest speculation. Ed.]

The FX5 brings long‑requested features such as open‑gate recording, internal RAW, three base ISOs, and a detachable OLED viewfinder into a compact, production‑ready body. Sony technical marketing manager, Ben Pilling, said the camera represents "everything people have been asking for finally in one place."

Pilling said the FX5 sits below Sony's higher‑end cinema cameras but introduces capabilities previously reserved for models like VENICE and BURANO. "Open‑gate recording, our other cameras didn't have that. Internal RAW, that's been a big demand. FX5 brings all of that into play."

FX5 features

The FX5 supports Open Gate 3:2 full‑sensor readout, X‑OCN RAW recording, and new lightweight RAW codecs X‑OCN C1 and C2, enabling 16‑bit scene‑linear files written directly to CFexpress cards. Sony confirms these capabilities in its official launch materials, noting the camera's fully stacked CMOS sensor, 15+ stops of dynamic range, and three base ISOs of 800, 4000 and 12800.

One of the most notable design changes is the optional detachable OLED viewfinder. "It's a big, big ask," Pilling said. "People loved the FX3, but traditional shooters wanted a proper viewfinder, especially in sunshine. FX2 has a built‑in EVF, but FX5 gives you the option. Detachable, optional, whatever your workflow needs."

The FX5 also ships with an optional XLR top handle, enabling 96 kHz / 32‑bit float audio, a first for the FX series. "When you've got the handle attached, you get 32‑bit float audio, XLR options, and a 3.5mm jack," Pilling said.

Pilling emphasised the camera's sensitivity: "Great rolling‑shutter performance, great low‑light performance. FX3 and FX6 are known for low light, this is more than competitive with those." With three base ISOs, shooters can maintain low noise across mid‑range exposures without stretching a single ISO node.

Because the FX5 records internal RAW, Pilling said it fits naturally into high‑end workflows. "You could use this as a B‑cam on a BURANO," he said. "It's the same menu structure as our virtual camcorders, not the Alpha‑style menus. It fits into that workflow a lot more cleanly."

The camera also adds false color, waveform, and anamorphic de‑squeeze, features previously limited to higher‑tier Sony cinema bodies.

Sony plans a major firmware update in August 2027, adding 4K240, expanded HFR support, open‑gate XAVC, and frame‑grab functionality. These future updates are also referenced in Sony's official FX5 announcement.

Pricing and availability

Pilling confirmed the FX5 will begin reaching dealers towards the end of October. Sony's official pricing lists the FX5 body at €5400 and the FX5 with XLR handle at €6000. The detachable viewfinder is an additional cost of €750.

New DP7 and DP5 monitors

Sony also has the RM-DP7 and RM-DP5 monitor‑controllers at the show. "These are remotes which are also monitors," Pilling explained. They support camera control, focus control, vector scopes, assignable buttons, LAN or USB connectivity, and third‑party wireless integration. The 7‑inch version includes HDMI in/out and SDI, while the 5‑inch model offers HDMI only.

"You can control the camera itself — focus, settings, everything — even if the camera is on a crane or remote rig," he said. "They're calibrated by our engineers for high color accuracy."

 

What’s the difference between IPMX and ST 2110?

ISE

IPMX and ST 2110 both transport professional media over IP networks but differ mainly in who they serve: ST 2110 is engineered for broadcast facilities, while IPMX adapts the same core technology for pro AV environments such as corporate AV, education, and control rooms. Here’s how they diverge and where each fits.

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Broadcast and pro AV: Two worlds, one foundation

ST 2110 is a broadcast‑grade media transport standard designed for environments where every device runs in lockstep. It moves video, audio, and metadata as separate IP streams, all synchronised using PTP (Precision Time Protocol) for frame‑accurate switching, multi‑camera alignment, and deterministic behaviour in studios, OB trucks, and live galleries.

IPMX uses the same foundation but reshapes it for pro AV, where networks are less uniform, devices frequently change modes, and sources behave more like everyday HDMI/DisplayPort equipment. It retains the ST 2110 packet structure but adds flexibility, discovery tools, and content‑protection features broadcast systems never needed.

Rob Moodey, Manager, Strategic Partnerships at Matrox Video (an ISE 2027 exhibitor), explains: “IPMX extends ST 2110 beyond broadcast into live events and wider AV. It supports uncompressed and lightly compressed video, adds profiles for highly compressed AV workflows, incorporates HDCP, and offers simpler timing.”

What is ST2110 exactly?

ST 2110 is a suite of SMPTE standards for transporting professional media over IP, covering uncompressed and compressed video, audio, and ancillary data. Broadcast deployments typically use a subset defined by JT‑NM TR‑1001‑1, which ensures device interoperability – the version most broadcasters mean when they say “we run 2110.”

ST 2110 assumes:

• A PTP‑synchronised environment
• Static video formats
• High‑bandwidth networks (10–25 GbE)
• Uncompressed or lightly compressed video
• Predictable, engineered behaviour

This makes it ideal for control rooms, master control, sports production, and any workflow requiring frame accuracy.

What IPMX adds

Developed by AIMS Alliance (which exhibits at ISE) with SMPTE, AMWA and the EBU, IPMX adapts ST 2110 for pro AV and introduces:

Flexible timing models

IPMX supports synchronous and asynchronous sources, with or without PTP. Cases that are normal in pro AV but would break a traditional ST 2110 workflow include a laptop unexpectedly changing resolution during a presentation, a display forcing the source to adopt its preferred video mode, or a device entering sleep state and stopping transmitting video even though it still appears connected.

IPMX uses RTCP sender reports to help receivers adapt quickly when formats change – something ST 2110 does not support because broadcast streams are expected to remain static.

HDCP support

Broadcast systems never handle protected content, but corporate AV does. IPMX adds HDCP‑equivalent protection so HDMI/DisplayPort sources can be transported securely.

Mandatory NMOS

IPMX requires NMOS, which is described by AMWA as the “special sauce” enabling connection, management, and control of IP devices from different manufacturers in a common, interoperable ecosystem. NMOS works with both ST 2110 and IPMX, locally or in the cloud.

Support for compressed video at practical bitrates

IPMX mandates JPEG XS, enabling visually lossless 4K over 1 GbE – the infrastructure most organisations already have.

Where each standard fits

ST 2110 is right for:

• Broadcast studios
• OB trucks
• Live sports production
• Master control rooms
• High‑end facilities needing deterministic timing and uncompressed video

These environments justify expenditure on PTP clocks, engineered networks, and 10–25 GbE switching.

IPMX is primed for:

• Corporate AV
• Higher‑education lecture theatres
• Control rooms and operations centres
• Government and enterprise environments
• Mixed IT/AV networks using standard 1 GbE switches

These spaces need flexibility, HDCP support, and plug‑and‑play behaviour – not broadcast‑grade rigidity.

Interoperability between them

Because IPMX is built on ST 2110, the two can interoperate:

• IPMX devices can send ST 2110‑compatible flows
• ST 2110 receivers can accept IPMX streams when formats match
• NMOS provides a shared control plane
• Asynchronous IPMX sources carry timing data that can be re‑aligned in strict ST 2110 environments

This allows broadcast facilities to run ST 2110 in production areas and IPMX in adjacent spaces such as meeting rooms, briefing centres, or control‑room extensions.

The ISE takeaway

A growing number of IPMX Certified solutions are now coming to market, so look out for them at ISE! These span the complete signal chain from encoders to LED processing platforms. IPMX Certification gives integrators and end-users confidence of verified compliance.

In summary, ST 2110 is the broadcast standard: precise, rigid, and built for engineered networks. IPMX is the pro AV adaptation: flexible, discoverable, and designed for everyday IT infrastructure. Both share the same DNA but serve different worlds.

Eluvio claims breakthrough in ULL streaming after World Cup pilot

Streaming Media

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Eluvio CEO  and co-founder Michelle Munson says the streaming industry is entering a new phase where ultra‑low‑latency performance is no longer a niche requirement but a fundamental expectation for global sports. After a summer of high‑pressure testing during the FIFA World Cup, she argues that Eluvio’s Content Fabric has demonstrated a level of consistency that conventional cloud/CDN architectures simply cannot match.

Eluvio streamed all 104 FIFA World Cup matches in a paid commercial pilot with a tier‑one U.S. broadcaster. Munson calls it a “capstone” moment for the company, designed to validate direct‑to‑consumer performance at scale. The headline metric was latency—and the numbers were stark.

“We were ahead of the broadcast with DTC streaming by seven to ten seconds per match,” she reports. “Ahead of the best streaming service the broadcaster had by 15 to 25 seconds. And consistently ahead of other streaming services—typically 30 seconds to a minute.”

Crucially, she stresses that this performance was uniform worldwide: “It didn’t drift over time, and it didn’t vary by region.” For Munson, that consistency is what separates the Fabric from legacy approaches. “When everyone around the world is watching the same moment, being behind is painful,” she says.

The pilot also validated Eluvio’s ability to deliver ultra‑low‑latency B2B broadcast feeds, which often require sub‑500‑millisecond performance globally. Munson says Content Fabric delivered “well under 20 milliseconds” in the U.S. for those feeds—numbers that place it in broadcast territory rather than streaming territory.

Munson rejects the idea that ULL is about shaving milliseconds for competitive advantage. “When you’re 10 seconds ahead of broadcast, 15 seconds ahead of best‑case world streaming, and typically 30 seconds ahead, you’re in a different category,” she says.

Historically, she argues, low‑latency streaming has required trade‑offs—security, ease of deployment, universality, cost. “They were too complex, too expensive, or simply not good enough,” she says. “We don’t compromise those things.”

Eluvio will announce the broadcaster behind the World Cup pilot later this year (though not at IBC2026 in a couple weeks). Based on what Munson said this was with either Fox (which aired coverage on Fox, FS1 and streamed on Fox One) or NBCU (which held Spanish language rights to the tournament in the US and broadcast on Telemundo with all matches streamed on Peacock).

As large as this pilot was, Munson says her company has already run an even larger deployment with another tier‑one sports league (which will also not be revealed at IBC).

Munson attributes the latency gains to the Fabric’s zero‑copy architecture, which she describes as fundamentally different from traditional cloud/CDN workflows.

Instead of transcoding, packaging, chunking, and pushing content through CDNs, the Fabric creates a componentised, reference‑based representation of video, audio, and metadata. “It’s literally the same parts in the network,” she says. Live streams, VOD, clips, and B2B feeds are all assembled from the same underlying objects.

“There’s no republishing, retranscoding, or re‑packaging. Clips are created instantly. One distribution serves everywhere.” Munson says this eliminates egress fees, removes the need to store multiple renditions, and keeps core bandwidth flat regardless of audience size.

Latency comes from combining zero‑copy with just‑in‑time video processing, which fetches and assembles object parts without adding delay. “It performs uniformly worldwide—game after game,” she says.

During the World Cup, she says, the broadcaster delivered feeds “literally a few days before kick-off and just went.” Because of just‑in‑time publishing, the system was ready as soon as the live feeds and front‑end experience were in place.

Many recent ULL solutions rely on WebRTC or proprietary protocols that introduce compatibility challenges.

Eluvio says it maintains standard DASH and HLS delivery while reducing end-to-end consumer latency. For broadcaster contribution and distribution, the platform supports SRT outputs with sub-second latency.

According to Munson, this is achieved by changing the underlying content routing architecture rather than replacing established playback standards.

Instead of repeatedly retrieving manifests and media segments from origin servers, Content Fabric distributes reusable content components throughout the network, assembling streams dynamically as requests arrive.

Because requests are fulfilled from distributed content objects rather than repeatedly generated assets, Eluvio argues that scalability becomes independent of audience size.

Munson emphasises that the Fabric doesn’t require broadcasters to change their workflows. Inputs remain standard—SRT, transport stream, RTMP—and outputs are standard DASH and HLS. The platform supports HEVC multiview, all major DRMs, server‑side ad insertion, discontinuities, Dolby Atmos, and HDR10. Eluvio will announce live Dolby Vision support at IBC.

Munson says the fabric could deploy Media over QUIC, but Eluvio hasn’t needed it: “We’ve no gaps in performance to fill.”

“QUIC is compelling for real‑time interactive use cases,” she says, but “for one‑to‑many distribution, it doesn’t offer a benefit.”

A single pipeline for broadcast and streaming

At NAB earlier this year Eluvio talked about extending Content Fabric into broadcast distribution. Historically, broadcast contribution and consumer streaming have relied on entirely separate infrastructures. Satellite and dedicated transport networks handle affiliate distribution. OTT platforms operate through cloud encoders and CDNs.

Eluvio is attempting to collapse these workflows into one platform.

Using the same underlying content representation, broadcasters can ingest transport streams and distribute them globally to affiliates via SRT while simultaneously serving consumer OTT applications from the identical source.

The company says this enables broadcast-quality contribution and DTC streaming with functions like DVR, VOD creation and archive generation all from a single distribution pipeline.

For organisations operating premium live sports, the potential reduction in duplicated workflows could significantly simplify operations.

“Our company exploded this year”

Munson describes 2024–2025 as a breakout period for Eluvio. “Our company has just exploded this year,” she says. Broadcasters are looking for simplification, efficiency, and picture quality. She believes Fabric represents that breakthrough.

Sports organisations are also using Eluvio for direct monetisation, unlocking “dark markets” because the platform is inexpensive and globally scalable. According to Munson, the architecture enables the organisation to operate with a small technical team while expanding monetisation beyond territories covered by traditional broadcast licensing.

Clients including global club rugby league the United Rugby Championship and URC’s partner, European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR), streamed around 300 live events on Fabric for the 2025/26 season. Cricket Australia, the country’s governing body for professional men’s and women’s cricket, have also piloted a Fabric deployment.

Munson again hints that in the U.S., Eluvio is working with a tier‑one league “second to none,” though details remain under wraps.

 

Sir Gary Oldman: “There’s an anxiety going into any project.”

IBC

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He has played Harry Potter's godfather Sirius Black, egomaniac screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, a dreadlocked pimp and a flatulent grease-stained white knight. Whatever the part Sir Gary Oldman’s performances are indelible and acclaimed, often lifting up an otherwise mediocre film. Yet, “deeply self-critical”, the actor admits to huge self-doubt.

“John Lennon once said he would burn most of the songs and start again. I can understand that,” Oldman told an audience at the Edinburgh TV Festival where he was collecting the festival’s Global Icon Award.

“There’s an anxiety I have going into any project. Working with new directors and new actors I always [wonder] ‘Will I be any good? Will I pull it off ? I have this low frequency of anxiety whenever I start a new job.

“Fear is good but you can’t let it cripple you. A bit of butterflies in your belly and with experience you get them to fly in formation.”

Reflecting on a how “a young boy from South East London” had made it to this stage, Oldman said, “Hard work and commitment, yes, and more than its fair share of luck. Countless directors and producers who took chances on me, and fellow actors who influenced me and thousands of crew members are on every frame I have appeared in.”

Of his entré into acting in 1979 he said, “I wanted to work - bottom line.” His heroes were film stars with working class roots - Alan Bates, Tom Courteny, Albert Finney, Richard Burton and most especially Malcolm McDowell.

“When I looked to America I saw De Niro and Pacino, Gene Hackman, George C Scott, Paul Newman and especially Robert Redford. These were people you revered and the movies they made were something incredible. All I could think about back then was maybe I’ll get a gig in rep.”

In the early eighties, Oldman appeared at the Royal Court Theatre in London and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

“I know that the rep[ertory] system is not as prevalent as it used to be but you can still go to theatre – or the Fringe – and make a fool of yourself,” he said. “In those early experiences you find what you are capable of. I still apply things I learned from [theatre mentors] now from those early days.”

Oldman’s screen career is defined by a whole-hearted commitment to the role. Whether it’s the mania of a drug addicted Federal agent in Leon: The Professional (1994); the weight lost to play Sid Vicious in Sid & Nancy (1986); his feral interpretation of the Count in Francis Coppola’s Dracula (1996) or the psychotic hooligan in Alan Clarke’s BBC movie The Firm (1989).

Before his screen debut (in Film 4 produced naval drama Remembrance in 1982) Oldman was in the cast of the play Privates on Parade.

“I had a scene where I wore nothing but boots and a jungle hat,” he said. He wanted his skin to show the tan lines that a soldier on duty in the Pacific might have had. Despite being teased about it by the rest of the troupe he persevered with hours in makeup before each performance.

“I wanted to make it as believable as I could. I’ve always had that attention to detail. A commitment to it.

“You must go to bed thinking about it, wake up thinking about it and spend all day thinking about it. If you don’t have that you must want it more than your life.”

On Darkest Hour, the 2017 film for which Oldman won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Churchill, he described enduring 20 hour shoot days.

“The earliest call I had was 1.10 AM to come in and put make-up on. My head was shaved and I had 4.5 hours in make-up,  a 12 hour day, then 45 minutes to take make-up off. Nor can you look at your phone – you have to stare into the mirror. And the make-up people got less sleep than me. I loved every minute of it but you’ve got to be committed.”

On Mank he recalled director David Fincher ordering over 100 takes of a single scene.

“There’s a scene where I have speech walking around the table. We did that 30 times, then we shot all the reactions of the people around the table. I would work with David again even though some days were like that.”

If an actor’s only goal is to be a famous actor, Oldman added, then he despaired.

Having agreed to a project Oldman trusts in his instinct to unlock the character. “I was shooting a film in Brooklyn and I heard a kid walk by the trailer, rapping. I thought – that’s Drexl (the dreadlocked villain he was next to play in True Romance, 1993). So I grabbed him, got him to read my lines into a tape recorder so I could go away and listen to his cadence.”

With Slow Horses’ dishevelled spook chief Jackson Lamb it was costume. “I felt that the physical silhouette should be somewhat iconic but I didn’t know what. Then at the costume fitting I was trying things on all sorts of things but only when I put the mac on did it feel right. It’s also my nod to Columbo.” 

He had the New York Irish accent for his gangster character in State of Grace (1990) nailed down but it still felt insubstantial and “very surface” until he tried on a leather jacket. “I had long hair, I swept it back and I knew then that this was Flannery.

Oldman claims the process remains a mystery “but you have to have the intuition to notice it and catch it,” he said. “It could be an accent or music or something on TV. My wife often scolds me for staring at people but I’m filing their behaviour away. Yesterday I took a picture of a guy at the station, discreetly. He will go in my file….” 

With the sixth season of Slow Horses about to release on Apple TV, the actor explained why the original role ticked all the boxes.

“I wanted to be part of longform TV since watching I, Claudius and Brideshead Revisited. I wanted something in the spy world because I loved doing Tinker Tailor [Soldier Spy]. I did not want to wear a wig or dress in armour or rubber (which he did for The Fifth Element]. I wanted to come in and do 20 minutes of make-up and speak in an accent not far from my own.”

Tongue in cheek, Oldman says he tasked Douglas Urbanski, his long time production partner, to find something that checked that list.

“Lamb might have been written for Tim Spall [Slow Horses author Mick Herron describes Lamb as ‘Timothy Spall gone to seed’] but it fell from the sky. I was ready for the challenge of something I haven't done before.”

Even with Urbanski on board as producer and with all the talent that Apple TV could muster there was no guarantee Slow Horses would make it past the first season.

“The biggest issue in season one was finding the right tone. What we were trying for was the Coen Brothers. When you watch [a Coens movie] you know what film you are in for instantly. They balance comedy and danger and that is what we were trying to get – not making it overtly comic but a drama peppered with humour.”

 It’s surprising to learn that improvisation is allowed on set.

“We start out a scene and find that it needs adjustment and we work it out in the moment,” he explained. “I might think of a quip Lamb would say and we’d a little exchange with Saskia [Reeves] or Jack [Lowden]. This is what is unique about the show in my experience. There is no privilege of authorship so you can contribute ideas and you are heard. People don’t put up a wall and dismiss you which is the case a lot of the time.”

He thinks Lamb resonates with the audience because he can do things – like smoke, drink, and eat fast food with no exercise which no other character is doing on TV.

“He is likely an alcoholic and he has no filter. He is direct. He is not arsed with social norms. That’s the fun of playing him and I think why people enjoy watching him.

“It’s a great part on the page but he doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Jackson Lamb is a team effort and we all bring our innate humanity to it. There’s a lot of mechanics that go into it and a lot of creative collaboration.”

He added that for the six years of the show’s run he has had none of the fear that usually dogs his mind.

“Occasionally you work with an arsehole you never want to work with again but on Slow Horses I even look forward to seeing the producers,” he added.

Gap between live sport and gaming nears primetime

Streaming Media

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The ability to stream alternative animated and video game versions of a live sports event have taken a step closer with tests involving EA Sports, broadcaster Sky and German premier soccer league Bundesliga.

The Bundesliga is exploring ways of flowing match data directly into gaming engines, where fans can replay a goal as freely as they would inside EA Sports FC and where there are serious discussions about streaming alternative broadcasts of the match itself.

“Once match data is transported from the physical world into the digital world everything becomes possible,” said Hendrik Weber, Director of Sports Technology & Innovation at the Bundesliga in a showcase of innovation at the home of Bundesliga team Borussia Dortmund last week. “Now, with 3D data, low latency, and gaming engines powered by AI, we can create things we simply couldn’t before.”

The league’s data system is routinely captures between 21 and 30 skeletal points per player at 50 frames per second, generating roughly 200 million data points per match. It is based on TRACAB’s optical tracking infrastructure, now installed league‑wide, which uses 12 synchronized 4K cameras to deliver volumetric positional data with the accuracy required for advanced media applications. Hawk-eye officiating data that determines offside decisions is also incorporated.

Weber explained, “It’s the same pipeline we use in all 36 stadiums every weekend. Now we can run it through EAFC and instantly generate a virtual version of the match.”

EA Sports acquired TRACAB in 2025, bringing data capture and gaming technology under one roof. The acquisition has accelerated experimentation, allowing EA and the Bundesliga to test new workflows that merge live match data with gaming‑engine rendering.

Oskar Norrman, Senior Director of Business Development at TRACAB and EA Sports emphasised that the demo in Dortmund was “a special version of the game” in which the EA engine is fed with the same 3D tracking data generated for broadcast.

This is an extension of a 2023 trial made by Sky Sports with the English Premier League of a Game Mode camera angle which simulated the perspective found in EA Sports FC.

For the Bundesliga the tie-up with EA Sport is not purely about potential revenue stream but extending the league’s brand to the game’s 300 million players globally. Some two billion virtual matches featuring Bundesliga clubs are played every season.

“You can use the highlight tool inside the EA SPORTS FC environment to create a fully immersive replay,” Norrman said. “You can control the camera, move through the scene, and select the exact angle you want. If I want to look at a goal from Der Klassiker [any Bayern Vs Dortmund match] I can simply use the joystick to find the perfect perspective.”

Users can also recreate the moment from scratch, choosing either custom angles or standard broadcast views. “This opens up huge possibilities for creators, broadcasters, and ultimately consumers,” Norrman said. “Our goal is to make a tool so easy to use that if you can play the game, you can create your own content.”

Bundesliga execs agreed that this level of interactivity is now in play. “We’re not far from a use case where a kid watches a live match, pauses it, switches to the gaming engine, rewinds 20 minutes, and replays the scenario themselves,” Weber said. “Maybe they even insert their own avatar. That level of personalisation is coming.”

Sky Deutschland, which since June is part of Germany’s RTL Group, is reportedly exploring ‘alt’ broadcasts of live events for distribution on its digital channels.

Sky’s SVP of Sports Production, Alessandro Reitano believes gaming‑style experiences will soon play a major role. “Some fans grew up with EA Sports and want the same dynamics they play with: static angles, point‑of‑view shots, hypermotion, graphics, stats,” he said. “We can’t translate that into a traditional broadcast—but with these tools, we can.”

He sees potential for recreating stadium atmospheres for remote fans. “Yes, 100 percent,” he said. “This is my personal North Star. Some fans want analysis. Some want gamification. Some want the feeling of being in the stands. The more toolboxes you have, the better you can serve your audience.”

Playmobil soccer activation

The same data was also being converted on-the-fly into an animated version of the Supercup for toy brand Playmobil. British AR specialist Trickshot was behind this trial. It has built its own games engine - a blend of Unreal and Unity - to turn the raw match data into Playmobil figures.

Founder Simon Thompson explained, “We take the 3D data captured by the cameras around the stadium and feed it into our game engine. That allows us to generate completely different camera angles and perspectives you could never achieve in a traditional broadcast. The delay in rendering is just 1.5 seconds.”

Last year, Trickshot partnered with Manchester City and Etihad Airways for a video series united augmented highlights and match footage in a virtual world. The series featured Omar Marmoush’s Premier League Goal of the Season and İlkay Gündoğan’s overhead kick with cityscapes of Abu Dhabi, Hanoi, Hong Kong and Krabi and generated over 80 million views on social.

“There’s huge potential here,” Thompson says. “Imagine a completely different broadcast designed for a different age group. With this approach, you can do fun, creative things—changing hair colours, turning Harry Kane into a golden Ballon d’Or figure, transforming players into stylized characters. You can stream on Twitch and have Twitch commentators gamify the action. All of that becomes possible when you work through the game engine.”

Dominik Scholler, SVP Management & Innovation at Bundesliga Media, sees the convergence as part of a broader shift. “3D data lets us understand exactly where a player is, how their body is positioned, whether they’re using their left or right foot, and how they move dynamically,” he said. “It’s all about enrichment. We’re not creating something entirely new; we’re adding meaningful layers on top of the core match.”

Reitano emphasises that football’s cultural sensitivity requires careful integration. “The how is the complex part,” he said. “Using 3D data in the best possible way—without disrupting the core 90‑minute football experience—is the challenge. Football has a very sensitive audience. Some fans simply aren’t interested in graphics or data. You can’t overwhelm viewers or change the feel of the match.”

At the same time, he sees significant potential for new formats aimed at younger audiences. “When you dive deeper into 3D data, you realise you can overlay real players with other bodies—something we’ve already seen tested in the U.S. This is about attracting new demographics. Linear TV is plateauing, and younger audiences consume sports differently.”