While there are many significant changes coming to the Isle of Man TT as the historic event returns in 2022 after a two-year pandemic pause, perhaps the one that will make the biggest impact (at least to fans) is the arrival of live television coverage for the first time ever. But, with the challenges of covering a 37.73-mile course and two and a half hour long races, it has left many questioning just how the production will work.
With that in mind, The Race sat down with TT boss Paul Phillips to get a sense of exactly what fans can expect when action gets underway in late May for the two-week event – and, importantly, how much they can expect to pay for the new digital streaming service being launched to host it.
“It’ll all be delivered through our own channel,” the Manxman explained of the new complete digital package, “and you’ll be able to access that through anything with an internet connection. There’ll be an app on your TV, on your smart device, from your laptop, and it’ll be available for the full fortnight, from the moment qualifying starts until the last race.
“It’ll feature an on-site studio built in Nobles Park, with talent anchoring the show from there, and there’ll be a big uplift in the volume of talent working on it. A lot more presenters, journalists and pundits from what we’ve seen in the past, and we’ll talk more about that in the future.
“There’ll be a lot of boots on the ground in terms of camera positions on the course, and two heli-telis. When we produce our traditions highlights, we do that with one helicopter, but there’ll be two now for resilience but also for more coverage. There’ll be a full onscreen graphics package with the new timing system, so it’ll be fully integrated with all the live leaderboards you’d be used to in a normal sports broadcast.
“There’ll be lots of pre- and post-event coverage in terms of buildup and punditry and that sort of stuff. Greenlight Television, who are the host production company, are building a new live production suite in their Tromode base, so it’ll be produced from about a mile and a half away from the TT Grandstand.”
However, while it’s clear that significant resources are being invested by the Isle of Man government (who, unusually, are the race promoters, with Phillips being a civil servant), Phillips says that it won’t quite bring everything everyone wants, at least in year one, as they work on perfecting what they’re doing.
“In terms of scale, it’ll be like nothing we’ve ever seen before in our sport,” he insisted. “The only thing that we won’t be delivering straight away are live onboards, because it’s very expensive. We’ll still have a lot of onboard content, but to do it live when you chuck a mountain in the middle of the course at the speeds we’re going at, it’s even more complicated. If we took the MotoGP technology, we’d have to spend a lot more again to make it work. You have to fly an aircraft overhead and all sorts.
“It’s really exciting, and it’s going to be challenging. Live broadcasting does go wrong, and people shouldn’t expect there not to be any mistakes, because even the best live broadcasts do go wrong. That’s what happens. And we’ll be running at a slight time delay to manage the pictures that people see.”
It’ll also look and feel very different from traditional TV coverage of the 114-year-old event, which until now has focused on edited highlight shows that squeeze a six-lap, 226-mile race into only 30 minutes. Instead, with a longer format perhaps more reflective of events like the Tour de France than MotoGP, Phillips says live TV creates the opportunity to refresh the format too.
“One thing is that it’s going to look very different between qualifying and racing,” he said. “In qualifying, the story is very much going to be around the paddock and the parc ferme, as the stories unfold, and less so about on track, even though there’ll still be cameras out on track. We’ll be able to explore different parts of the track that maybe we can’t on race day.
“Then race coverage will look a bit more like what we’re traditionally used to, except more extensive and in real time. If you think, people are used to watching the TT in the UK on ITV4, and those shows are an hour long with ad breaks, so with preamble and post-event stuff, a two-hour race is about 30 minutes of coverage – but a two-hour race now becomes a two-hour race. You’ll see it all, much more than anyone has ever seen before.
“ We did some testing in 2018 of the tech that we’re using, and I’ve seen a very rough edit of the start of the 2018 Senior TT with the radio commentary overlaid. The camera are rolling, just a couple of them, it hasn’t been edited, the commentary isn’t made for the pictures, but it gives you this rough flavour of what it might be like – and it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. When we do it properly, with all of the cameras and talent and editorial, it will be special.”
Marking not just a minor change in the event but a wholesale step away from the traditionally conservative format of the past and more in line with the direction in which other sports have moved in recent years, it’s also not something that Phillips expects to happen completely without opposition.
But, with the new coverage not just rolling out for TT fortnight but across the whole year – and with expanded plans for 2023 and a revamped race schedule that sees even more on-track action – he’s adamant that it will satisfy everyone once fans get a chance to witness what they’re aiming for.
“Right now the trajectory looks like a lot more content being delivered digitally,” said the veteran race boss, “and our new channel launches in the spring, with archive and original content from day one. Then obviously we get to TT and it’ll be live, along with all of our other supporting content being delivered alongside it on the social channels and digital channel. Then we’ll go into the summer and autumn with the docuseries, the film, and more original content.
“Live event coverage, short-form stuff, protagonists’ stories, explainers; all this kind of stuff. You’ll be able to immerse yourself in original content from the TT almost all of the time, which is where you have to be. That’s what all the successful sports properties are doing at the minute, and if we can get some traction with our event then there isn’t anything like it.”
All of which leads on to perhaps the most important question for many fans: cost. While it’s still not confirmed as the contract for hosting the new channel remains out to tender, Phillips is adamant that it’ll be very competitively priced with an eye to expanding reach rather than profit.
“Nearly all of the content we’re delivering will be free,” he stressed. “Some of it will be behind a paywall, like live coverage of the TT, but it’ll be very cost-effective. It’s priced to generate eyeballs on screens, not income.
“There are a few unknowns still in that, like who we’ll be working with to deliver it, but that’ll be resolved really soon.”
