Innovation Story: Carys Owens, Managing Director at Whisper

The Whisper Cymru Broadcast Centre is a remote broadcast production facility in Cardiff. Led by Managing Director Carys Owens, Whisper Cymru was pitched to Channel 4 for the Paris 2024 Paralympics, to enhance live coverage and digital content creation with innovative remote production techniques.   

Whisper wants to establish Cymru Broadcast Centre as the UK’s most accessible live production facility.  

Carys talks about Whisper Cymru’s sector changing R&D, exploring how to make live production in sport more accessible and sustainable and how they implemented this research in their production of the Paris Paralympics in 2024.

Whisper Cymru – Wales’ first remote production facility… 

I’m Carys Owens, Managing Director of Whisper Cymru. We’re based in Tramshed Tech in Grangetown, Cardiff.  

Whisper is a multi-genre production company specialising in sport entertainment and events for broadcast, linear, live, highlights and digital content.

Leading the way in accessible live production in Wales 

The focus of the Whisper Cymru Broadcast Centre project is to make live production more accessible.  

In 2021, Whisper pitched to Channel 4 for the coverage of the Paris 2024 Paralympics Games. This entailed delivering all the highlights and the live coverage for Channel 4, More 4 and digital content – including several live streams on YouTube.  

We were already used to doing a lot of remote productions, with one team typically being on site during a sporting event, such as the Formula One coverage we do for Channel 4. Back at base in the UK, we would have the core team of production and editorial, all in one place. There wasn’t anything like this in Wales, so it was a brilliant opportunity to bring more work to Wales, to ensure that we had a facility with the capacity and the connectivity to deliver at scale and quality. 

To achieve this, we undertook a feasibility study on having better connectivity out of our base in Cardiff. We successfully implemented a diverse connectivity path, meaning if one network goes down during a live broadcast, the system will automatically connect and kick in to another network, critically meaning there would be no disruption to the viewing experience. We were able to achieve this in partnership with Openreach and Ogi, another Welsh supplier.  

Luckily enough, we were on the path to build a brand-new remote production facility in Wales and it’s now one of the most well-connected broadcast buildings – certainly in Cardiff and among the best across the UK.  Our goal was also to bring more work into Wales and provide more opportunities for those with disabilities to work in live production.  

Our original target was 20% of production talent with disabilities were going to work on the Paralympic Games behind the scenes and this was at the forefront of the planning when we were looking at building the Cymru Broadcast Centre. We were very intentional about having outreach events, bringing lots of local people into Cardiff, and facilitating outreach events with disability groups. We didn’t have anything like a remote production facility in Cardiff at that point that had a diverse fibre network. So, once we delivered that, we wanted to build a new facility from scratch. 

Our big ambition was to make the Cymru Broadcast Centre the most accessible production facility in Wales, and the UK. We worked very hard with connectivity partners and had the support from Tramshed Tech and Media Cymru, Welsh Government – with Creative Wales – and Cardiff Capital Region to be able to do research and development (R&D) into making live TV coverage more accessible.

Opening the doors to a diverse workforce 

Live sport production tends to be in outside broadcast trucks and it’s not very accessible, so the R&D project that we looked into was, “how do we make live TV and live sports more sustainable and accessible?”

The Cymru Broadcast Centre has opened the doors for recruitment for Whisper. We’re now able to bring a lot more diverse teams together when we’re pitching the work in development and when we are producing live coverage – especially with sport, when we are usually on site in outside broadcast trucks. To make live sport more accessible, we can now have people coming to Cymru Broadcast Centre that would have never had the opportunity to work on live outside broadcast events in the past. The Cymru Broadcast Centre facility includes a changing spaces toilet, wide walkways, ramps, power-assisted doors and accessible signage and its colour schemes and signage have been designed to ensure the centre can be used by as wide a range of people as possible.  

Whisper × Media Cymru × Channel 4 

For the Cymru Broadcast Centre project, Media Cymru supported us alongside Channel 4 for the R&D. This enabled us to bring in consultants, The Ability People, to really get into what was needed within live TV production. 

From the findings of the R&D work and the actual build of the remote production hub of Cymru Broadcast Centre, we partnered with Channel 4 as the main Commissioner, Creative Wales and Cardiff Capital Region. Our hope is this project will act as a case study for other technical facilities to use as best practice and to share lessons. 

An ongoing R&D project… 

One of the biggest things we’ve taken from this project is that our R&D work will never end – we always need to keep learning, evolving and innovating. Leading broadcasters need to factor in this research, to stay on top of their game, and understand the opportunities, challenges and expectations facing them in the industry and society – and how they can lean into these shifting landscapes.   

Strength in working together sector-wide  

The Cymru Broadcast Centre and all the R&D that’s gone into it is a significant point of differential  for us in Wales, allowing Whisper to tap into a broader base of talent, add diversity of thought and experience to the business, and act as an agent of change in the industry.  

We have a lot of creative talent here and by having creative hubs like Tramshed Tech here in Grangetown, it convenes a range of people together across different tech, creative and digital sectors.

About Carys Owens 

Carys Owens is Managing Director – Whisper Cymru. After working predominantly in Post Production and live broadcasting for quick-turnaround sporting events, Carys later became a Producer and Executive Producer. She founded her own production company – Lens 360 and in January 2021, Lens 360 joined forces with a long-term production partner Whisper to begin a new journey as Whisper Cymru.  

About Whisper  

Whisper is a global network of production, post-production, content and broadcast specialists, changing the landscape of sports, unscripted and branded entertainment with innovative approaches to live TV production.