Host Broadcast Services
Host Broadcast Services, HBS for short, is a television production company that serves an international audience of millions, particularly when it comes to broadcasting football world championships.
The company was founded in 1999 and is a subsidiary of the Swiss sports rights agency Infront . Accordingly, HBS is based in Zug , Switzerland, but has “planning headquarters” in Boulogne near Paris. The core of HBS already existed in 1998 and was responsible for the production of the 1998 World Cup in France. The camera work at that time and in particular the image direction are internationally considered to be groundbreaking for football broadcasts in the following years. Since then, the emphasis on emotional aspects has come more to the fore than a more distant, rational approach.
HBS has since produced the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea and was also responsible for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The reason is that the rights dealer Leo Kirch originally acquired the worldwide TV rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Championships. In this context, Kirch had agreed to produce the television broadcast himself. After KirchMedia went bankrupt, these rights were transferred to Infront. HBS also produced the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Also for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia HBS will be responsible for production.
Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany
At the 2006 soccer World Cup in Germany, HBS was represented in every stadium with 25 HDTV cameras and decided with its image control which excerpts were shown worldwide. The company employed six directors, two German, two French and two English. The production took place in the International Broadcast Center . In addition to broadcasting rights for 48 of the 64 games, the German television stations Das Erste and ZDF also had the right to operate their own cameras in the stadiums. They were allowed to weave their own images into the transmission. This right was mainly used during the live broadcast to depict national celebrities. The public broadcasters also used the images from HBS for the game itself.
Volker Weicker , who worked as a director for HBS in 2002, in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung on June 17, 2006 about the picture direction:
"[...] There is sure to be a standard paper that explains exactly what to do in which game situation. Everything is regulated in it: how many slow motions come, which comes first, how many slow motion repetitions are broadcast in a row. In a sense, the spirit of the client is in this catalog. The question that one asks at HBS is: What does a feed, an image offer, look like that inspires the Japanese, the Iranian, the Australian and the Brazilian alike? There are simply different international standards for broadcasting football. […] In England, people sit very close to the outside line. In Germany you have to make a cut for every applause, in England the jubilation is always in the picture. Perhaps as a HBS director you are also considering not showing the scantily clad Brazilian women so often in order not to annoy the Muslim viewers. Such a stipulation paper should do justice to everyone. [...] "
After the first week of the World Cup, the TV images selected by HBS were criticized by viewers, journalists and also within the TV stations. ARD team boss Heribert Fassbender and ZDF editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender criticized the delayed slow motion and an excess of total settings .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. Accessed May 7, 2018 .
- ↑ heise.de, Football World Cup: Wooden hut be vigilant
- ↑ "The drama does not take place" - Interview with director Volker Weicker about the live broadcasts at the World Cup (SZ from June 17, 2006)