‘The new oil is sports’: Saudis share masterplan to boost esports on global stage

SVG Europe

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Sceptics may call it sportswashing, but the ambition to position Saudi Arabia as the global hub for sports and gaming should not be underestimated. The country is committed to the Vision 2030 sports, tourism, entertainment and investment blueprint for transformation, and its leaders are candid about why and how they will do this.

“Investing in gaming and esports is strategic for KSA,” explained Saudi Minister of Investment H.E. Eng. Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih. “Vision 2030 is about social transformation and pivoting from reliance on natural resources because in many ways the most renewable and most important resource is the human resource. Oil is the most important part of global economy – everybody knows its valuation – but the new oil is in sports and esports.”

He was speaking as part of a panel of Saudi leaders at the New Global Sports Conference in Riyadh last weekend (23-24 August), an adjacent event to the finals of the Esports World Cup.

“If we were drilling very deep for oil decades ago, we will drill very deep into sports – pun intended,” he said. “People look at gaming as an entertainment tool for consumers. We see it as the cornerstone of transformation that includes tourism, technology, education and social development.

“The glue that connects this is PIF [KSA’s Public Investment Fund]. To do this we have to get the entire ecosystem to grow together as a global not just a national coalition. We are opening our doors in the kingdom for global investment. We have so much potential to catch up in terms of consumption.”

There is huge latent demand for sports in the kingdom. Its digital native population is not only young, 67% (23.5 million of the 35 million population) consider themselves to be active gamers. The market for video games in KSA is already worth $1.8 billion with $6.8 billion projected in gaming consumption by 2030. Esports and gaming’s contribution to GDP is projected to hit $13.3 billion by 2030 and generate nearly 39,000 jobs.

“People look at gaming as an entertainment tool for consumers. We see it as the cornerstone of transformation that includes tourism, technology, education and social development”

“Everything we do is be a part of a global network of sports. We have the support. I mean, where else in the world would you get four of the top government ministers sitting with someone in charge of esports to talk about games? It shows the importance that this has to our economy and the importance it has to the future of young men and women in this country.”

He pointed out that female participation in esports is on the rise.

“The global average for women in esports is 5%. In Saudi it is 20% and growing,” he said. “We have 500 esports graduates at universities, a good proportion of whom are women, and 3,000 young women who will become pro players in the next 3-4 years.”

The chair of the Saudi Esports Federation, HRH Prince Faisal Bin Bandar Bin Sultan Al Saud, elaborated on the growth trajectory of domestic esports.

“When we started in 2018 we had one game development company, one professional esports team with six professional players. We had a community that was an unknown entity, almost no investment in the business and industry regulations that were unclear. We had no servers that were hosting games.

“Today, we have servers where the ping rate in almost every game is under 40 milliseconds and, on average, probably closer to 10ms. We have dozens of professional teams and 10,000 players. We have a dedicated women’s team with equal prize money pools.

“Over 3 million people have come to Riaydh in this heat to visit EWC2025. Summer here is a time when everything used to close down. Now hotels, shops, restaurants are open because of esports.”

In MENA as a whole right now some $6 billion in revenue is generated from gaming, over one-third of it emanating from Saudi. “That’s 350 million gamers in one region speaking one common language of gaming with Saudi at the centre,” he added.

“But it’s not just how can we contribute to help develop talent here. Our goal is to create a global hub for gaming and esports but not the global hub. What we need is more global hubs so the global sport reaches the pinnacle of other sports like football.”

The esports exec sharing the stage with the Saudi officials was Ralf Reichert, CEO, Esports World Cup Foundation. “The question is not has esports arrived but what are we building around it,” he said. “The game has expanded as players move across titles, platforms and communities. Recognition is crossing over with sports stars like [F1 driver] Lando Norris visiting where he said the level of skill is insane. This is not hype. This is excellence recognising excellence.”

While the likes of Norris, Cristiano Ronaldo, Gerard Piqué, Kaká, Alisha Lehmann and Nick Kyrgios have appeared in ambassadorial roles at EWC25, the organisation is helping put the spotlight on esports players by arranging for them to appear at major sports events such as the Grand Prix or the Super Bowl.

“We are putting them in the life they deserve to be, which is at the top of the cream of the crowd of any sport out there,” said Minister of Sports Abdulaziz Bin Turki Al-Faisal.

World chess champion Magnus Carlsen even competed in the inaugural chess event at EWC2025, winning the tournament and a cheque for $250,000.

One mandate for Vision 2030 is to increase the participation of Saudis in sports. In 2015, 13% of the population spent half an hour or more participating in any sport during a week. Setting a target of 40% by 2030, last year it had already reached 58% with 23 million Saudis playing esports or video games of some form.

“With 63% of our population under the age of 30 they are energetic and want to do stuff. It is our job to ensure they participate in different sports,” said Turki Al-Faisal. “Esport is a sport. It takes a lot of practice, training and fitness. The beauty of esports is the ability for mass participation around the world.”

Fahd Hamidaddin, who runs the Saudi Tourism Authority, said foreigners travelling to the kingdom for sports was the most important reason to visit.

“We realised that tourism for sport is growing faster than those travelling for other purposes like culture or leisure, therefore we are investing heavily in sport across the board.

H.E. Abdullah Alswaha,  Minister of Communications and IT, noted that the local esports community is growing at five times GDP. “The investment is about how we can take this traction and activate the next big thing. The kingdom has committed billions of dollars to gaming and positioned Qiddiya [a new city being constructed 40 minutes away from the capital] as a global gaming destination.”

In concluding remarks HRH Prince Faisal said: “We were looking to build a complete esports pipeline for players and coaches and also for the industry for broadcasters, creators, event professionals, developers, entrepreneurs – the whole ecosystem.

“The message is simple. Esports has entered the mainstream of world sports and Riyadh is one of its capitals.”

Kingdom prepares for FIFA World Cup 2034

In November 2023, the KSA was confirmed as host for the 2034 World Cup. It now has to build much of the infrastructure to support it. Minister of Sports Abdulaziz Bin Turki Al-Faisal claimed the bid file for the tournament had the highest rating of any World Cup bid ever.

“2034 is a highlight for us in sports, a showcase for the kingdom, but there’s a lot of work to do in nine years to make sure we deliver on our goal to host the best World Cup in history,” he said.

“In the past eight years, Saudi has proven itself as host for some of the biggest events in the world, but we know that the World Cup is the biggest, especially with the increased number of national teams competing. We’re watching what’s going to happen in [US, Canada & Mexico], to learn from it.”

The five host cities will feature 15 ‘advanced’ stadiums, including 11 new, planned stadiums. Riyadh itself will be home to eight venues for World Cup matches, with the final hosted at the new 92,000-capacity King Salman Stadium.

A new city is being built entirely as a venue for sports and entertainment. Qiddiya, near Riyadh, will host World Cup games at a stadium to be constructed featuring a “stunning view” of the Tuwaiq cliffs and exterior facades covered in coloured glass and LED screens.

“We are working on the infrastructure that will accommodate the World Cup, including hotels and hospitality units, and designing the stadium at Qiddiya to make sure it has a legacy. It needs to be integrated for other sports, including esports.

“I don’t think there is a government in the world that collaborates across sectors as we do to make sure that we succeed to achieve these goals.”

 

Esports World Cup 2025: Team Falcons defend title as broadcast production ramps up the game

SVG Europe

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To no one’s surprise, Team Falcons has won its second consecutive Club Championships at the Esports World Cup (EWC). However, the Saudi-owned esports organisation was taken to the final week by seven other teams, giving the whole tournament a competitive edge it lacked when Falcons romped to victory with weeks to spare in 2024.

Hosted for the second year in Riyadh, the seven-week-long tournament, which concluded on Sunday (24 August) looks set to be not just an annual fixture on the esports calendar but a major attraction on the global sports scene. That’s the masterplan anyway.

“We’ve had decades now of esports, but it’s really been the idea of competition towards conclusion of one specific tournament,” said Mike McCabe, COO of the Esports World Cup Foundation, which is the event organiser.  “The Club Championship at EWC makes it bigger. Being able to create a longer, more connected story over the course of the seven weeks is something that we’ve really leaned into and we think is truly unique. This year, having it come down to the final week and be so incredibly close amplifies the whole competition.”

EWC 2025 organised 25 video games competitions ranging from chess to 5v5 first person shooter title Valorant. All 200 clubs could field teams in every discipline with points and cash prizes going to the winners of each individual game out of a total prize pool of $70 million. The championship cumulative points total determined the winners of the Club Championship with the top 24 clubs splitting $27 million and the winner landing a $7 million pay cheque. Team Falcons were only victorious in one game (Overwatch 2) but had the strength in depth to accumulate high scoring positions in 21 other games.

“When we launched EWC in 2023 our purpose was clear from day one; to elevate esports and make it more sustainable,” said Ralf Reichert, CEO, EWC Foundation. “After just two years, the Esports World Cup is no longer a bold idea; it’s the foundation of a global sport. Within esports, EWC is the biggest so far in this industry. It’s a unique club competition featuring the best games with the world’s best athletes. What has happened at EWC 2024 and again here in 2025 is bigger than we ever imagined. And in 2026 [when EWC returns to to Riyadh from 6 July-23 August] we’ll take it even further.”

The stats speak for themselves.

EWC 2025 set new records with 750 million viewers and a peak of 7.98 million viewers during Gen.G Esports’ victory in Week 2’s League of Legends tournament. Some 340 million hours of content have been watched, outperforming 2024’s inaugural event across the board (the comparative figures for 2024 saw 250 million hours of content streamed to 500 million viewers and a peak viewership of 3.5 million).

In addition, the competition and adjacent festival of gaming featuring myriad games-related activations for the public drew more than 3 million visitors to Riyadh’s Boulevard City, topping last summer’s 2.6 million.

The effort to attract a wider audience outside the esports community was centred on EWC Spotlight, a new global broadcast production managed by IMG. In total, 7,000 hours of live content were produced (proudly proclaimed to be second only to the 2024 Paris Olympics) across more than 800 channels and 97 broadcast partners, in 35 languages.

“We have to remember that esports is very nascent,” explains Viranda Tantula, who served as executive creative director for EWC2025’s opening ceremony. “It started out being very crude and it was only when Riot Games entered the picture, 20-25 years ago, that esports coverage jumped to being well produced. Since then, there’s been a constant attempt to find the sweet spot between serving the core audience – the hardcore fan – but then also creating something that’s appealing enough to bring new people in. That’s where EWC this year is doing a pretty good job with Spotlight. For example, it introduces people new to each game with simplified heads-up displays. A little bit of simple explanation goes a long way.”

For a casual esports observer like your SVG Europe correspondent watching the game live in the arena can be confusing and not a little overwhelming. The faces of the players remain largely fixed as they concentrate on the screen in front of them and viewers can barely see their hand movements – they are after all just sitting on PC chairs playing with a console. To bulk this up as a spectacle for fans in the arena, giant LED screens display the action in incredible detail.

Each player has a OBSBOT Tail 2 POV camera trained on their face, other RF and Steadicams rove closer to them on the stage all but blocking the action for the studio audience, but their attention anyway seems fixed on the screen displaying the actual game play. For two-person games like Streetfighter, chess or games culled from conventional sport like EAFC this is relatively easy to follow, but you’d need to have played a multiplayer title like Crossfire to follow what’s going on. Data from each player’s gameplay is translated into graphics on the main screen, game commentary is broadcast in the arena along with constant kinetic show elements, special effects and high-energy music amping up the level of excitement even in clearly one-sided competitions.

The director mixing the live action for the arena displays and live stream on Twitch and YouTube can choose from a bewildering array of feeds – which could include 10 in-game virtual cameras (one per player), an overall ‘map’ for games like League of Legends or Counterstrike plus Grass Valley box cams, Steadicams (mostly Sony Venice) and wire-cams from Luna Remote Systems, including both 1-point and 4-point setups. There are also EVS XtraMotion and EVS VIA classic slow-mo systems.

“The thing that separates esports from traditional sports is that a higher percentage of the viewing audience also happens to play the game at a high skill level,” explains Tantula. “Anybody can watch basketball and go out on the blacktop and play but you’re not necessarily playing at the highest skill level. People who watch esports are used to consuming that amount of data. You will find a correlation between the people that play games and being fast at skills like maths.”

The ability to be able to take in constantly changing data from multiple sources simultaneously and compute it to be able to react is also an attribute shared by the broadcast directors. Most of them grew up with esports and will specialise in one or more discipline so they know the game play inside and out.

“Much like in traditional sports we have broadcast directors in charge of specific cameras. They’re keeping an eye on the specific parts of the action. Those people need to simultaneously be a technical artist and a camera operator or director. They also need to be a fan of the game and an expert on the game. In games like Streetfighter this process is a little easier in terms of camera because there’s only two players and the game is a relatively fixed frame. They might want to pull out to a crowd shot from time to time or a close-up of the intense look on a player’s face but in Crossfire or CS2 you have 10 players (five a side) each with POV cameras on them and each with a different view of the game,” he says.

To optimise the broadcast of esports, producers have studied where a viewer’s eyeball goes to on screen and what data they’re trying to consume. “In the early days of esports, 20 years ago, the broadcast graphics were a bit of a mess. Now they are incredible,” he continues. “What has changed is the relationship between the game developers and the broadcast team. The heads-up display of the game itself is not going to be messed with. That has to be optimised for gameplay because that’s the core product but over time there’s been a lot more collaboration between game dev teams and the esports broadcast teams to be able to take the API from the game to pull data and pull real-time stats and translate that for broadcast.

“Even things like sponsor integration used to be very crude. It would just be a logo introduced rather clunkily on screen. Now there are really cool opportunities for sponsors to wrap something in 3D into the game itself.”

Production is organised by ESL Faceit Group (EFG), a division of esports’ event organiser ESL and a subsidiary of Savvy Games Group which is owned by the KSA’s Public Investment Fund.

EFG built four esports stages running different competitions in parallel. By numbers they consist of: 3,000+ square metres of LED, 2,600+ light fixtures, 200+ high-performance audio speakers, hundreds of kilometres of cabling and more than 1,000 crew onsite.

“Because this is such a complex project, we involved publishers right from the R&D phase,” explains Vlad Petrescu, EFG executive producer, EWC. “We studied the best esports productions globally and the unique requirements of each game to make sure we deliver top-tier results. During the live shows, we have systems in place to quickly take on and implement publisher feedback across all production lines.”

“We don’t use a facilities provider — everything is built on-premises by EFG’s engineering team,” he adds. “On a typical day, when all four main stages and three secondary stages are active, we run 18 production lines.”

All production lines are equipped with GV vision mixers, EVS for replays and playout, Lawo audio stations, and 2110 IP distribution.

“Each stage has multiple production lines that interact with one another. It starts with in-game production, which shows the match and directs the observers. Then comes stage production, which handles the stage show and big moments like player reveals. From there, our English, Arabic and Chinese teams take the feed and add localised content like match analysis and custom video assets. We use various AI tools to enhance the final product, but the main editing is still done by editors who specialise in esports content.”

The opening ceremony, which featured a performance from Post Malone, was produced by Tantula and Ariel Horn who began his career in traditional TV at NBC Sports and Olympics, working on four Olympics and Sunday Night Football.

“We aspire to be like a Super Bowl half-time show on one level, but we also understand that our audience is a bit different,” Tantula explains. “There’s a certain type of spectacle they expect. How much do we try and emulate real traditional sports and how much do we be our own thing?

“When planning the Super Bowl half-time show you’d storyboard it then shoot a rehearsal with 30 cameras then go and edit those cameras into a show. There are some benefits to that, but it’s also very cumbersome. For the opening ceremony at EWC we pre-vized our whole show in Unreal. We programmed in all of our broadcast cameras with the proper lenses. That buys a lot of efficiency with rehearsal time.”

They brought together artists Dino of Seventeen, Duckwrth and The Word Alive to write the official EWC 2025 music track, pointedly titled ‘Til My Fingers Bleed ’. The track fuses K-pop, hip-hop and rock.

“I’ve loved the genre and fandom of the K-pop world ever since my days helping bring K/DA to life, and this time we’ve collided it with metalcore and H-hop,” says Tantula. “Hopefully we understood the rules of these genres well enough to know how to break the rules.”

This is important since for all the execs at EWC, esports does not stop at video gameplay. They see a major strength of esports is its latent ability to transcend boundaries, literal and cultural.

Tantula was at Riot Games for eight years in the early days of esports helping the developer make its first forays into collaborations with the fashion industry before co-founding creative studio and consultancy Potion Projects in 2020.

“We operate at the intersection between the different verticals of gaming, music, film, art, fashion and sport,” he says. “In an increasingly global world, with everything going on, it’s easy to feel divided but these are some of the few universal languages that transcend borders. Some kid in Korea could be playing with a kid in the US and with another in the Middle East. Esports is so exciting because it connects people.”

 

Edinburgh TV Festival: TV tourists, the Trump effect and YouTube

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British TV is in the midst of generational transformation and for better or for worse, is ever more directly affected by the global TV industry.

Netflix were called ‘TV Tourists’ for hoovering up British TV talent after public service broadcasters had put in all the hard work and funding, during the 50th Edinburgh TV Festival.

This was related to a heated debate about how public service broadcasting should be protected and came alongside multiple warnings about the chilling effect of political interference on mainstream news.

This was headlined by the agenda-setting McTaggart Lecture in which James Harding the BBC’s former director of news now boss of Tortoise Media warned of “chilling” political interference in news coverage.

“Whatever your view of the hate speech vs freedom of speech issues, an overbearing government minister doesn't help anyone,” he said. “The hiring and firing of [the BBC director general] should not be the job of a politician.”

He also warned that the Corporation needed protecting from Reform UK which had vowed to scrap the license fee if it gets into power.

Dorothy Byrne, Former Head of News & Current Affairs, Channel 4 said [in the session: Trump vs. The Media] the UK should take heed of the “big mistake” which the US made in 1987 under the Reagan administration when it got rid of regulations for press fairness.

“We must not get rid of regulation. Regulation helps to bring trust because you have to have balance and in U.S media there has not been balance. Some of that has been too liberal and they haven't listened enough to the right. Not hearing sufficient right-wing voices is an error that some of our public broadcasters here are guilty of too.”

As befitting its brand and its PSB remit, Channel 4 execs decided to pull no punches.

Louisa Compton, Head of News & Current Affairs & Specialist Factual & Sport, Channel 4 defended the role of PSBs saying that Adolescence, a British story made by British crafts and crew but funded by Netflix wouldn't have happened without PSB backing.

“We supported [writers] Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham with multiple dramas on Channel 4 long before Adolescence. We've developed the talent that allows Netflix to come in as TV tourists.”

Compton was speaking at the ‘Opening Debate: The Future is Now – TV's Place in the New World Order’ which asked not just what's broken, but what can be fixed and by whom?

In other strident comments she highlighted a key difference between streamers and UK PSBs; “There’s not a single film on Gaza or British politics [on international streamers]. Everything is retrospective. They don’t follow stories as they unfold.”

And she batted away repeat talk of a merger between Channel 4 and the BBC with this sharp dig: “A perfect example of why we shouldn’t merge is the Gaza doc Doctors Under Attack. The BBC decided not to air that for their own reasons but we were able to show it.”

She called out the “Trump effect” leading to an “assault on journalism” and “caution” from US broadcasters in what they commission. That is drying up funds for producers working in current affairs and who have historically looked to the US for finance.

“We still invest in public service journalism,” she insisted. 

The economic uncertainty in the market which has been going on since COVID has drained the industry of much of its freelance talent.

John McVay OBE Chief Executive, Pact said, “The chilling of investment coming from North America and the economic downtown in the domestic industry [means] a lot of shows aren’t getting commissioned. That means a lot of freelancers have had to leave the industry.

“As an industry we should have been collectively thinking harder, and training and reskilling those people to keep them in the industry because they have cultural skills, creative skills, experience management skills.

“It’s not because indies don't want to hire people. It’s because they're not getting commissioned, so they can't provide the employment. It's a tragedy that the industry hasn't done more to retain that talent and re-skill it for the future.”

Pressure is growing on broadcasters to prove their digital strategies and the brave new world of unregulated and unrestricted creator content demands closer examination.

“The only way we make money is to look globally,” said Benjamin Zand, Founder, CEO & Documentary Maker, Zandland. “We definitely can’t sustain a business solely in the UK.We need multiple revenue streams by working across linear, digital and branded content.”

He thought that TV was entering the age of the “super entrepreneurial production company” run by creators or execs who have to think outside the box. “There is a huge amount of risk, but there is now a significant amount of reward, if you can build an audience and you can monetize that audience Previously, as a producer you relied on the broadcaster to build your audience. Now, you can be an Empire.”

TV shows are no longer confined to the TV screen. Whether on social or gaming platforms, they're engaging with a Gen Z audience in the places where they already spend hours a day. After years of missteps, TV producers and broadcasters are finally getting the hang of it, according to execs at the session ‘From IP to XP: Building Immersive Worlds for Gen Z’.

“We tried unsuccessfully to port TV IP to the metaverse many times but we were not meeting audiences on their own terms,” said Mariel Capisciolto, Head of Digital Development, BBC. “Sometimes the IP might be right but the platform was wrong and vice versa. We’ve been experimenting quite a bit in this space and now we’re getting more right than wrong.”

Making game versions of TV shows is not just about reaching younger audiences that are not engaging with linear TV or broadcaster digital channels. It’s also about playing around with a sandbox that might just unearth the next viral hit.

“TV’s biggest problem is that you make a season and have to wait for another year for another series, if you are lucky, with nothing happening in between. Games, by contrast, are omnipresent. Users craft a new story every day,” said Tom O'Brien, Managing Director of Naked, producer of long running shows like The Apprentice (BBC), Grand Designs (Channel 4) and The Rap Game (BBC), a version of which is on Fortnite.

“The best thing about The Rap Game (Fortnite experience) is that when the show finished on TV there was still a presence in the long gap between seasons. That’s an incredible marketing tool to juice engagement when you have it and the direction that TV needs to go.”

He added, “TV people are used to controlling everything from the first word to the final credit. The whole point of games is that you have to hand it over to people. They craft a new story with it every day. You have to get comfortable with not protecting everything. You have to hand IP over in order to keep it living.”

Speaking in the opening debate Bryony Hopkins, Head of Production and Operations at digital first producer Strong Watch Studios, acknowledged a change in the way broadcasters approach online – but wanted them to go further.

“There is definite ambition from broadcasters to enter this space but from an infrastructure perspective they are still set up to make linear TV,” she said. “In digital you need to think about things differently.  The TV model has a clear hierarchy and direction of travel for people during their career. With digital that is blown out the water.”

She urged PSBs to put more of their content on YouTube from all PSBs. “There is value in having content in lots of different places but the industry also needs to look at changing the funding model [for distribution on third party platforms) which is beneficial to indies and broadcasters.”

Channel 4 claims to be the market leader in terms of a broadcaster distributing its content on YouTube where views to its content have yielded a 169% increase, Compton said. The broadcaster also has a new deal where it can sell adverts directly with YouTube.

“We are starting to see revenue coming this way. There are challenges working with networks. We have no control over third party platforms. The algorithms are shady and non-transparent. I also believe Public Service content should be kite marked [given prominence] on those applications.”

A year has passed since BBC News Analysis Editor Ros Atkins delivered a signature explainer to forensically dissect the TV and content landscape. He returned to interrogate the most urgent, uncomfortable questions facing the industry.

“British TV is in the midst of generational transformation,” he said. “Legacy broadcasters must deal with a change of leadership as declining reach and market forces tear old models apart. Mergers are being touted, streamers' belts are tightening and production companies are going under. For better or for worse, UK TV is ever more directly affected by the global TV industry.”

Earlier this year, Ofcom reported that YouTube had overtaken ITV to become the second most watched streaming service in the UK behind iPlayer. Among 16 to 34 years olds YouTube was the most-watched service overall. Ofcom warned: “If content from PSBs is going to survive, it has to be discoverable. That means forging commercial and strategic partnerships with platforms – and not treating them like the enemy.”

He posed a question, “Unless PSBs starts putting significant content [on YouTube] where young audiences are, its model will be broken.”

Atkins also highlighted the centrality of technology, especially to distribution. This year, the BBC is spending £88 million ($118m) on online & TV development which is a significant increase but that pales besides Netflix $2.9 billion spend in R&D including new search and recommendations technology.

“Broadcasters are still committed to their own VOD platforms. But there's fierce competition. And they are having to decide how much of their content to put on platforms such TikTok and YouTube. The best technology is ever more vital to getting your content to audiences. That’s still exerting significant strategic pressure.”

With £4.7 billion invested by US Studios in UK HETV at last accounting, McVay was at pains not to kill the golden goose in “This helps sustain jobs and facilities and tell British stories but the biggest challenge is that the licence fee is not keeping pace with streamers.

“Inflation is up, everything costs more – here, in the EU and North America. Sources of finance to close deficit are drying up making it harder to get things made.  

It’s a fundamental problem. We are not getting enough money in licence fee to get to shows made quickly enough.

He warned, “Indie producers used to have an idea and sell it to a broadcaster. Now, we've got to come up with the money ourselves. There's a problem because not everyone's got the bank of ‘mom and dad’. As a result, there's a problem with diversity and inclusion coming down the track where a lot of people who probably would get into our industry previously may now be excluded. That's a big issue for our whole industry to start talking about.”

5 Minutes with Kevin VFX

interview and words for Sohonet

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Kevin is a boutique VFX shop founded in 2017 by Sue Troyan, Tim Davies and Darcy Parsons specializing in high-end VFX and finishing for commercials and producing compelling imagery for any medium.

Named VFX Company of 2025 by creative arts publication SHOTS, Kevin VFX’s recent projects include working for Squarespace (Barry and Mosley), Life360 (Coffin) and YouTube TV (What A Time to Be a Live Sports Fan). The privately owned and operated company is based in LA on the Santa Monica border and employs around 30 staff, with the capacity to more than double as projects demand.

As Head of Engineering for Kevin since 2019, Graeme Back has overseen a change in infrastructure to accommodate growth and resiliency including a migration of rendering from on-prem to the cloud enabled by Sohonet.

‍Graeme, please give a little background on the decision to migrate core technology off-prem?

Kevin VFX started out based in Venice, CA in a small building with high rent and not enough power. During Covid it made sense to move to a new property in a cheaper location with double the available power.

As part of that move we added Sohonet Multiport as our primary internet connection. We started off with a 3Gb to get us up and running and as the company grew, we were able to add some staff and take on slightly bigger jobs and the flexibility of Multiport allowed us to expand to 5Gb. That allowed us to set up a 2Gb direct connect into Google which became the main point of entry for our remote artists. It also gave us a more direct connection to their virtual machines to start rendering in the cloud. We saw instant benefit to that. 

As our business grew, we added more equipment and more staff but soon ran out of power in the new building too. Power, it seems, is the Achilles heel of physical location. Whilst GPUs offer better performance, the downside of running them for rendering is that they use a colossal amount of power. At that point we saw an opportunity to relocate our equipment into a data center. This would give us access to more power so we can add more render nodes as well as giving us a better resilience to power outages in the local area.

Why choose Sohonet?

I've been familiar with Sohonet for over 20 years since my time working at The Mill in London in the late 90s. At that time The Mill was one of a number of Soho (London) post houses that came together to create the original Sohonet fast fiber connectivity.

As I moved jobs and gained more responsibility for making key technology decisions it was a no-brainer to use the company that I was familiar with. When I arrived at Kevin VFX and the decision-making buck stopped with me it was an even easier decision to take because I didn't have anyone to sell the idea to internally.

Sohonet has more resiliency than other solutions because it has more indirect backups to failure going into that data center. In the long term it allows us to be independent of our physical building. If we ever decide to relocate, in theory it's a case of just making sure we've provisioned a Sohonet connection in that new building and then we just move over our endpoint PC over IP equipment and we're connected back to our data center.

The migration was made simpler because Sohonet was able to route graphics at both locations through Google Cloud Platform. Our artists connect to HP Anywhere Teradici through an access point in GCP and then Sohonet routed the traffic to the workstation wherever it is. This means our remote artists only need to know about one connection point - it doesn't matter where their systems are. Sohonet enables the network routing to automatically connect to their workstation whether it’s on-prem or the data center. Instead of having to shut the office down and move everything in one go, we were able to move a machine at a time, and once moved and the powered back up, the artist didn't have to think about anything. They were just connecting back to their machine and unbeknownst to them the physical location of their hardware changed.

‍Your suite of Sohonet products also includes ClearView Flex and FileRunner. How do those fit into your services?

We offer color in house and work closely with other color shops as required. When we do these remote sessions for clients, the streaming between colorist and client is enabled by Clearview Flex for remote clients. We are seeing an uptake in clients actually coming into the building but also work with many advertising agencies outside of the LA region who don't come in. So ClearView comes into its own in sessions with those clients.

We use FileRunner internally when our shoot supervisors are on shoots. It allows them to transfer all stills and reference files to us quickly so we can ingest them into our pipeline. That might be done by them connecting back to the office over the Internet via Teradici or it might be done by a support person in the office physically. Then we deliver assets to clients. This tends to be their final copies of jobs that they're keeping. We send this over FileRunner for them to download and keep it on their own servers.

We like FileRunner because unlike other apps it doesn't require a plugin. In the past our clients have experienced problems when having to install apps [of competitor services] but implementing FileRunner is so smooth. There’s no plugin, it runs super efficiently. It’s just easier for our clients and easier for us.

Where do you stand in the great AI debate about whether it is a tool or a threat?

We're researching AI, learning the tools and seeing what's available. Traditionally we do a lot of pitch work for agencies to land jobs but for all the work that we put in making animatics and storyboards we see little benefit from that when we don't win the job. Potentially we could use AI to speed up the brainstorming and pitch iteration process. Also, if a client came to us with a clearer representation of what they wanted having used AI to help them visualize it then that could be beneficial too.

The twin track of thought is that I work in a company full of creative people so removing one of the principal early stages of the creative process could be a risk. So, I can see AI working both ways.

I don't think we're at the point where AI images are generally accepted as high quality, certainly not for a primetime TVC. We’re in that super noisy phase of the introduction of a new tech where developers are trying to sell it into the industry, but I think ultimately the public will decide. They will be the ultimate arbiters of taste. As it stands today, it will change the way we work but I am skeptical that fully AI generated visuals will wash away the creative craft at the heart of our business.

 

UK and US media voice political interference and self-censorship concerns

Streaming Media

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The Republican attempt to break the media by suing corporations like CBS and forcing editorial decisions on them will back fire, claims Roy Wood Jr, host of ‘Have I Got News For You’.

“God Bless whatever Colbert does next year with no network person to give him notes on what he can and cannot say,” Wood said at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Wednesday. “Letting him run riot on YouTube is going to create a bigger issue for this Administration in 2026, especially if he builds an audience, which I think is inevitable.

“What this Administration is eventually going to see, is that by running people out of mainstream media - the dissenters, the people talking shit back about Trump - you run them out of wherever there are rules. If Trump’s people were smart, they’d leave us alone and let us tell our jokes in places where there are guardrails.”

“Look at what [California Governor] Gavin Newsom's doing by just throwing up a couple of videos and talking back to Trump. Millions of views – and he’s not even a trained entertainer!”

Asked if he felt vulnerable to attack, Wood said, “I think vulnerable would suggest that you can't fight back. I’m not self-censoring. So long as I have a microphone, my hope is that every comedian will continue to do that.”

The assault on press freedom on both sides of the Atlantic was a major debate at the Festival which is the premier annual event for the UK TV industry.

Calling Trump's approach to media “vindictive, transactional and codependent” Matthew Belloni former editorial director of the Hollywood Reporter and Host of The Town Podcast said, “The level of capitulation, kow-towing and chaos that is going on at the top level is pretty extraordinary. Starting with ABC paying to settle the George Stephanopoulos case and then going all the way through the things that Paramount did to get their sale approved.

“After ABC paid him, the flood gates opened. He knew that he had a pressure point with all of these media companies. He is nothing if not transactional and he is going to press every single button he can.”

Wood said he believed CNN would hold the line. “I just do not see this network in any shape or form making decisions based solely on whether or not the President's going to cost us a bunch of money in court.”

However, he admitted, “We have to hold on to the key people we have left, which means for my corporation to survive it cannot afford to go to war with the President.”

Giving the agenda-setting McTaggart Lecture, James Harding the BBC’s former director of news now director of Tortoise Media warned of “chilling” political interference in BBC news coverage.

“Whatever your view of the hate speech vs freedom of speech issues, an overbearing government minister doesn't help anyone,” he said. “The hiring and firing of [the BBC director general] should not be the job of a politician.”

He also warned that the Corporation needed protecting from right wing party Reform UK which had vowed to scrap the license fee (which funds the BBC). Reform UK could win power at the next UK general election in 2029.

Alongside Wood and Belloni in the session: Trump vs. The Media, Dorothy Byrne, Former Head of News & Current Affairs, Channel 4 said, “The U.S made a big mistake in 1987 when it got rid of the Fairness Doctrine. In the UK, we should learn from this. We must not get rid of regulation. Regulation helps to bring trust because you have to have balance and in U.S media there has not been balanced. Some of that has been too liberal and they haven't listened enough to the right. Not hearing sufficient right-wing voices is an error that some of our public broadcasters here are guilty of too.”

Belloni has been reporting on the recent decision by Paramount bosses to settle a dispute with Trump over the Kamala Harris interview aired on 60 Minutes, as condition of sale to Skydance.

 “The impact of the settlements that we've seen has been calamitous for the industry,” he said. “But looked at as a business transaction trying to close an U$8bn deal it was a existential moment for the Redstone family.”

Former Paramount controlling shareholder Shari Redstone said this week the decision for her company to settle the CBS lawsuit brought by Trump was a “no-brainer” and she expressed surprise that the cost of this was only $16 million.

“They could have either stood up to Trump or they could argue for ‘paying him off’ and they chose to pay him off and get the deal done. When you're looking at this from a business perspective, and you are in the chair, you  can either fight this, and become a target for the next two years or I can give a very small amount of money for my corporation and have this go away.”

“That said, the argument for not settling is a business argument as well because if you are not one of these people who is trying close a deal to get out of the business you have to deal with that precedent going forward. If I am ABC news, I now know that if we get sued over something that we've covered, there's going to be another settlement and another and potentially endless litigation.”

On the cancelling of ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’ Belloni said he concluded that the show was losing tens of millions of dollars. “If the calculus was pure p&l it’s understandable. CBS have discussed for a long time what the future would be about their late night programming [James Corden’s show was cancelled in 2022) and when you have to sign your talent and your lead producers a year in advance they pulled the plug.

“The optics of the timing [coinciding with Colbert’s blast about Paramount’s ‘bribe’] are terrible,” he added.
 
‘South Park’ seems a different case. Paramount recently renewed a deal with it creators for $1.5 billion then Trey Stone and Matt Parker let both barrels loose on Trump’s ICE agenda.

“We can’t look to Trey and Matt as the new leaders of the resistance but we are always appreciative whenever they join the fight,” said Wood. “They are equal opportunity offenders.”

The satirical show was arguably the frontline of the ‘man-o-sphere’ when it launched three decades ago and that remains key to its appeal including among many Trump supporters. Right wing pundit Charlie Kirk has even embraced his own lampooning in the show.

“No-one wants to quite dismiss it as fake news,” said Katie Balls, Washington editor of The Times. “In that sense, they take it a bit more seriously.”

The chilling effect of law suits and defunding on US journalism could be felt in three years’ time when the presidential election cycle starts.

Byrne said that despite being “mortally wounded” news broadcasters in the US still carried out “fantastic journalism” and called on them to stand up and speak truth to power.

“Do not rely on billionaires and politicians to protect your press freedom. We have to rely on journalists to do that. Every day I read brilliant journalism coming out of the United States but if you tell the truth, you can lose your job.  I don't feel that it's terminal but journalists need to rise up together and speak about these issues in the U.S, just as I believe that journalists around the world have to rise up together and speak about the threat to journalists in Gaza. Ultimately, we have to rely on ourselves as a profession.

Wood pushed back on this with a more pessimistic view: “American journalists have no choice but to see and hear conservatives and treat their claims and concerns as valid no matter how ridiculous they are,” he said. “I do not know if there are enough American journalists that care enough about the totality of our society to sacrifice their career for the things that you're talking about, because then the question becomes how many journalists can you fire before you fire the compliant one?”

He added that if American journalists started covering Gaza with the attention it deserved this would limit their “ability to cover all of these other atrocities that are happening domestically. Which fire do you choose to put out?  I just don't know if we have enough people that are as selfless as what is needed to fix modern day journalism.”

Having recently interviewed Skydance boss David Ellison, Belloni wondered what would become of 60 Minutes. “I asked him specifically what are you going to do about 60 Minutes. He said, ‘All I want is both sides represented, down the middle.’

“That’s a very easy thing to say. Sometimes the story doesn't have obvious both sides and 60 Minutes is the number one news program in the States because it often takes an angle on a story that gives a voice to somebody or has a perspective and tells a narrative.

“When Ellison is talking about bringing in someone like Bari Weiss, who runs a quasi-reactionary conservative website, to be overseer of balance at CBS then that is asking for trouble.”

Calling the administration’s approach to media “cowardly and manipulative” Wood noted that ‘Have I Got News For You’ has had many guests from the right on the show

“It’s partly because ‘Have I Got News For You’ is a legacy show that comes from a country [the UK] where it was allowed to punch politicians in the face, so you have to honor that ethos of the show in the States.”

Belloni countered that CNN is “tanking” in ratings as a sign that US audiences prefer partisan television news. “They want Fox. They want MSNBC. They want that perspective and CNN has been caught from the moment Trump took office in no-man’s land where they're trying to hold on to that illusion of the impartial news. It's just not working.”