Live broadcasting has never been more demanding. Federations, rights holders, and broadcasters expect real-time delivery across every technology. Behind that expectation sits a remarkable amount of invisible infrastructure. On this context, Eurovision Services has inaugurated a new location with expanded Master Control Room (MCR) in Madrid, one of the largest and most capable broadcast facilities of its kind in Europe, as it has claimed in a statement.

Eurovision Services has operated a broadcast hub in Madrid since 2019 and has been operating at an international level for more than 70 years from Geneva, Washington and Singapore.

Building on recent growth, the Madrid MCR is now a full-scale nerve centre for contribution and distribution, dveleoped with the intention of handling the volume and complexity that today’s most demanding rights holders require. The Madrid MCR completes the recent completion of a full 2110 customer led facility at the same location.

Hybrid infrastructure

At its core, the new Madrid MCR is a fully IP-based facility. iIt features hybrid contribution and distribution architecture: the platform supports multimodal delivery via Cloud, SRT, fibre, and satellite to service Eurovision Services customers across the globe.

“Investing in a new Master Control Room allows us to operate our hybrid delivery seamlessly and across geographies. It gives us the scale we need and brings our teams a more consistent, unified way of working”, explains Alex Sánchez, Chief Operations Officer, Eurovision Services.

This flexibility is increasingly critical in a market where no two workflows are the same. A federation delivering a World Cup feed to 40 broadcasters across different continents cannot afford a facility that only speaks one language.

The new facility is designed to scale with the demands of an industry that shows no sign of slowing. It is built around workflows and service delivery.

The MCR now operates 16 MCR positions, managing 84 channels and delivering over 15,000 hours of live transmission every month.