FISU TV – Gravity Media

EMG / Gravity Media Italy reaffirms its leadership in live sports content production and distribution by taking on the role of Executive and Editorial Producer for the Winter Universiade Torino 2025.

The event, scheduled from 13 to 23 January, includes comprehensive coverage of all competitions, including the opening and closing ceremonies.

Live Production: A Multi-Faceted Commitment

Leveraging extensive experience in winter sports productions, EMG / Gravity Media Italy has deployed a high-level technical and organisational service, ensuring live coverage of all disciplines featured in the official programme of the Torino 2025 Universiade.

The disciplines covered include alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, slopestyle, moguls and aerials, figure skating, speed skating, curling, and ice hockey. Live productions have been concentrated in the competition venues selected by the WUG2025 Committee, with a significant commitment at Pragelato Rua for the biathlon, where the Orion 209 mobile unit has been deployed.

The Orion 209 from EMG / Gravity Media Italy is an advanced mobile unit dedicated to high-definition audiovisual production, designed to meet the demands of complex live events. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, it supports multi-camera production, IP connections, and UHD-HDR broadcasting. Thanks to its modular design and extensive operational capacity, Orion 209 ensures flexibility and quality for sports productions, concerts, and television broadcasts.

The unit stands out for integrating cutting-edge solutions that optimise the management of audio and video signals, both in traditional configurations and remote production (REMI) environments. Additionally, drones have been introduced to enhance footage of the biathlon and the closing ceremony, providing unprecedented and immersive angles.

The Operational Team

“The operational coordination,” explains Davide Furlan, Project Manager for EMG / Gravity Media Italy’s production of the event, “involves a high-profile team comprising six Unit Managers dedicated to the competition venues, coordinated by me at every stage of the project. The team is further strengthened by the involvement of around 220 freelancers, reflecting the logistical and production complexity of an event of this scale.”

“A key aspect of EMG / Gravity Media Italy’s commitment,” Furlan continues, “is the technical and editorial consultancy provided to FISU to optimise the live coverage of competitions. Thanks to our expertise in winter sports disciplines, we have successfully translated FISU’s specific competition requirements into effective and high-quality production solutions.”

International Distribution: A Global Network Supporting FISU TV

Beyond live production, EMG / Gravity Media Italy has also managed the international signal distribution from its MCR in Cologno Monzese, dedicated exclusively to FISU TV. This service, previously tested during the 2023 Winter Games in Lake Placid (USA) and the 2023 Summer Games in Chengdu (China), is a model of efficiency and scalability.

The MCR operates an advanced cloud-based platform capable of managing up to 8 Main + 8 Backup live input feeds, ensuring a potentially unlimited number of output streams. For the Torino 2025 Universiade, nine international broadcasters are involved as takers, highlighting the event’s global appeal.

EMG / Gravity Media Italy’s collaboration with FISU also extended to the management of its International Broadcast Centre (IBC), hosted at the EMG / Gravity Media Italy facility in Cologno. Here, an EVS operator, a technical manager, and a media manager have overseen the control and delivery of content to FISU’s Media Hub.

The FISU production area included:

One coordination and production workstation for FISU’s Head of Production.
Three editing rooms: two for editing and one dedicated to news.
One taker coordinator for managing outgoing signals.

To ensure continuity and precision at every operational stage, the EMG / Gravity Media Italy team assigned to Cologno included a producer/general coordinator, supported by five MCR operators, an MCR supervisor, two technical supervisors, and three IT engineers.

An Innovative and Reliable Production Model

EMG’s integrated approach to the Torino 2025 Universiade highlights the company’s ability to manage complex projects, combining technical expertise, cutting-edge technological solutions, and structured organization. The synergy between live production and international distribution strengthens the relationship of trust with FISU and international partners.

The international MCR for University sports will be run in Milan by EMG Italy, in cooperation with SES and EVS

A brand new state-of-the-art broadcast operation hub for the International University Sports Federation (FISU) has been developed by EMG Italy in cooperation with SES, the leader in global content connectivity solutions, and EVS, opened at the production centre in Cologno Monzese, near Milan city area.

Capable of running up to 8 incoming live feeds and potentially endless outgoing feeds, the powerful Master Control Room has been designed to manage the channels for FISU TV and the worldwide distribution towards all rights holders and takers involved. The main solutions deployed include a combination of a cloud-based platform for distribution, management and creation of contents and highlights, and SRT technology for receiving and broadcasting feeds.

Operations started with the Lake Placid 2023 FISU Winter World University Games, which ran from January 12th to January 22nd. The live streams covered 12 sports, 10 competition venues and almost 100 races and exhibitions that involved 2500 athletes and coaches from 50 countries for 11 days.

“The effort is big, but we are excited to start this new adventure,” said Claudio Cavallotti, EMG Italy CEO. “We’ve been working many years along with FISU, starting ten years ago in Trento up to the wonderful edition in Naples in 2019. This is a great achievement for our technical team, as our MCR will be the main international hub of all FISU broadcast operations from 2023 to 2027.”

The MCR that EMG implemented in Cologno allowed to manage up to four redundant simultaneous feeds from Lake Placid to be received, monitored, converted, and recorded. The distribution centre then provided these four redundant signals to SES for wider distribution, to CCTV Beijing (via CMG), to Qazsport in Almaty, to Eurosport for linear and digital services, to EVS MediaHub for online broadcast access in Japan, Europe, and other buyer agencies.

Additionally, EVS, the leading provider of live video technology for broadcast and new media productions, supported EMG Italy with the deployment of a dedicated MediaHub instance for FISU. The cloud-based platform extends the reach of live events by enabling online publishing and distribution of non-linear and near-live content to rights holders globally.

Thanks to the powerful search engine of MediaHub, the FISU media team and rights holders can easily browse, clip, and edit content as it is being produced remotely. The platform also provides them with access to a consolidated, constantly updated archive for enriching their storytelling. The EMG Italy MCR can also provide a full catalogue of services to cover the entire production chain, including commentary booths for live remote voice-overs, audio mixing, multichannel monitoring, ingest, editing and a dedicated technical and production team.