DEEP DIVEspotlight DIVE Amazon Prime Video landed broadcasting legends Al Michaels (left) and Kirk Herbstreit for its Thursday Night Football booth.
Pierre Moossa, one of the most accomplished directors in the business, sitting next to Fred. Behind the scenes, you can’t do any of this without an incredible operations team, great technical people, and mobile units that can accommodate a show of our size. On the power of Amazon’s new Prime One mobile units: Palmer: From a tool-set standpoint, we are bringing a Super Bowl-level show out every week, and we needed a facility that could support that. We didn’t approach this [thinking about] what [other broadcasters] had done in the past. Instead, we asked, “How can we provide the best customer experience humanly possible?” We started with a clean slate and looked at every single element of the production from that lens. We ended up taking many new approaches with this [mobile unit] so that we could provide our production team with the tools and the core technology to produce the most amazing game possible. On how TNF compares to NBC Sunday Night Football: Gaudelli: I think it will be every bit the production value that I had when I was at Sunday Night Football [on NBC], without a doubt. You’re going to have a telecast that has every technical innovation that football fans love: all the camera angles, all the augmented reality, all the technology that comes with the first-and-10 line, a replay for every camera, expert announcers. It’s going to be as good as, if not better than, any football telecast that [viewers are] used to watching. On the interactive features in Prime Video’s viewing experience: Donoghue: Obviously, we’re an innovation-first company. We approach our broadcast that way, and you’ll see it in the broadcast. The OTT platform provides us a great opportunity to provide not just new ways to engage fans with data,
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highlights, and alternate feeds but also almost infinite choice. A lot of what we’re trying to do is cultivate and program the best experience for the most fans. We’re creating a huge, big-tent experience, and then we’ll provide great optionality for fans. Not everybody wants to watch the game the same way. We’re not choosing one type of fan to serve; we’re trying to serve all fans. On whether to differentiate or follow traditional standards in TNF coverage: Stacy: It goes without saying that the bar for primetime NFL production is really high. So we’re more focused on being ‘great’ than we are about being ‘different.’ That said, there are things that are naturally going to differentiate us. For example, Al [Michaels] and Kirk [Herbstreit] are two legendary broadcasters, but you’ve never heard them work together. We think that is going be unique. We also think the cast of characters we’ve got on the pregame show will be very big differentiator for us. From a technological standpoint, we plan to utilize the OTT platform to provide a totally different experience from [traditional linear broadcasts]. At every stage, we asked ourselves, How can we leverage the OTT platform? How can we offer optionality? How can we expand the fanbase? On the unique layout of the Prime One trucks: Palmer: Our primary goal with [the layout] was to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible. Our productioncontrol room is configured in a way that has never been done before, with things like more headroom, two rows instead of three, and rotating back benches so everyone has line of sight to the monitor wall. Every little detail you could imagine has been taken into account, and, even though it’s a big space, it feels very intimate since you don’t have so many people crammed in. On how TNF looked to appeal to football fans used to watching on TV: Gaudelli: NFL fans have a very definitive expectation when they turn on the television. The best people in sports television work on the NFL. When it comes to primetime, I think [fans’] expectations are heightened: if you don’t come with a real quality show, they’re probably not going to come
