Daragh Ó Conchúir catches up with Helen Arnold of TVM who are leading the field in providing coverage of sporting events

GENERALLY, television viewers take the process by which the pictures are being brought to them for granted.

It isn’t something we think about. The image might wow us, but it is rare that the people actually bringing them into our homes come into the equation.

That changed last month, when the men and women of Irish Racing Integrity Services (IRIS) produced some remarkable coverage from Thurles, despite the thick fog that engulfed the racecourse.

We have become accustomed to long periods of silence from commentators in such situations, waiting for whatever remained of the field to reveal themselves up the home straight and having to use our imaginations with regard to the fate of those that hadn’t made it.

Not this time though. The challenge ultimately provided us with thrilling new camera shots and angles that captured racing in a fashion we had rarely seen before.

“We would have had professional tracking cameras in from the UK in the past, where you’d have had something like a Range Rover with all the equipment set up on the roof and all the remote controls inside in the vehicle,” explains company director, Helen Arnold.

“But we found, for the most part, that the roads around the racecourses in Ireland weren’t in the right place or weren’t smooth enough. There aren’t many tracks where you have that but the key to Thurles was that the road was on the outside and sufficiently smooth.

“So in fairness, what we did actually was a reaction to what happened on the day to be completely honest. The Molonys (who own the track) happened to have a car with a sunroof and they were prepared for us to have fellas standing up on the seats and hanging out through the sunroof, and (former jockey) Ken Whelan was brave enough to say he’d chase the horses around for the day (driving the car).”

It was a testament to the team’s expertise and feel for racing. It said a lot too about the relationship fostered over the years with the chief protagonists, as they consulted with the jockeys after the first race in case there were any issues with regard to proximity.

It was a stunning affirmation of the level of technical innovation at IRIS’ disposal too.

While there was an element of on-the-hoof reaction to the elements, the fact is that 12 months previously, it could not have been done.

It all began many years ago, when a 12-year-old bummed lifts from neighbours to local athletic meetings around Fermoy to provide public address and commentary with his home-made battery and speaker.

Bart Arnold was on his way. As they might say around Bartlemy, he didn’t lick his technical prowess up off the ground.

“Back in the ‘60s his father was generating electricity on a small stream at the end of the farm and charging glass batteries,” his wife reveals. “They had electricity in their house when nobody else had.”

The Arnolds have been innovating ever since. As well as being of a technical bent, Bart had a racing background.

So spotting an opening, he began doing PA and commentary at various point-to-points around the Cork-Waterford circuit in 1978. The following year, he introduced a camera and sold video tapes to connections. By 1980, the pictures were in colour.

Helen’s family were into GAA, but fortunately, she is very artistic too and was involved in amateur theatre as an actor and producer. It was fortunate because during one such production, Bart was doing the sound and special effects. They met, hit it off and were married in 1984.

Two years later they established TVM and the company has gone on to cover live events in Ireland for Sky (producing all their live sport on these shores), RTÉ, TG4, Setanta and TV3 amongst other clients.

Those events are primarily sporting, with GAA, soccer and even cricket joining racing in the portfolio. It isn’t just sport though.

Their expertise has been called into play for momentous events such as the visit of American president Barack Obama to Moneygall, the historic trip to Ireland by Queen Elizabeth, and the G8 Summit.

“The one thing we’re really, really good at is logistics. Practicalities. Organising. And the G8 was exactly one of those situations.

“Our daughter, Marie (whose sibling, Trish is also working in the company) would have been involved in all the logistics of that and I would say for three months before that event, she did nothing else but planning and organising that.

“So we’re liaising with Home Office. Liaising with the CIA. We ended up with accreditation in the Red Zone, which meant we were walking along beside the leaders.

“In our line of business we describe these as Grade A events, where you have a back-up for the back-up. In general racing terms you have your back-up, but when you go to Grade A events, you have another back-up for that again, in terms of equipment and people.

“And then you have all the logistics, accreditation, security that goes on in the background. There’s way more pressure and when you come out the other end of the them, there’s more buzz as well.

“To be fair though, something like the Derby gives you that pressure as well because the whole world is looking at that too. Racing does bring its own challenges for the big events.”

TVM have a permanent staff of 50 now between its Dublin base and Bartlemy HQ, with in excess of 100 freelancers used throughout the various outside broadcasts.

Little wonder they won the Munster final of the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Award under the Women Led Business category and they won national honours on Thursday night.

“It’s nice that people consider that we’re doing a good enough job to consider us for awards. It’s a testament to the work that everybody in the team puts in. We mean that very genuinely.

“Our business is very much about technology and equipment but one of Bart’s sayings is that anybody can buy the kit, it’s the people that matter. We believe that and live and work by it.

“It’s a little bit like being on the treadmill. You can’t stand still. You have to keep up with technology and developments in the industry. In a lot of cases you can be a leader in the development as well.

“In terms of racing, we’d have spent the last three years in various holidays at different parts of the world and we always went to see ‘Okay, what are they doing in Australia? What are they doing in Hong Kong? What are they doing in Dubai?’ and trying to bring back the best of those things to Ireland in so far as it’s affordable for us to have them here.

“I think we’re seeing the proof of that now in the service that IRIS is currently providing, where the technology has moved on so much from the older contract.”

IRIS came about when Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and the Association of Irish Racecourses (AIR) put a five-year contract for the production of coverage from all 26 racecourses up for European tender.

TVM set the firm up as a joint venture with O’Doherty’s Audio Visual Production and after winning the HRI/AIR approval, began their High Definition broadcast service at Fairyhouse on New Year’s Day.

“The key to success is to listen to the customers. What we’re hearing from the racing people is that they want better angles of racing. It wasn’t just about more cameras. More was great but they had to be in the right place.

“So one of the things we’ve developed this year is the Versa, which is basically a sprinter van with a small hoist arm on it and a remote-control camera on top of it.

“The cameraman is operating the camera via remote control while sitting in the van. So with that, we get elevation and we can reach out over the track to get good head-on shots down the back straight and that kind of thing.

“The big key to it is that because the cameraman isn’t on top of the hoist with the camera, there’s a lot less wind resistance. So you get much steadier, more solid pictures.”

It is typical of the innovative outlook. The HD pictures provide a sense of detail that accentuates the action, where you can see the variety of colours in a horse’s skin, the majesty of the muscle definition, the movement.

That applies for the jockeys too; their faces, the strain of the effort, the movement of the whip.

IRIS is unique in that as well as providing an entertainment service, it also has an integrity role as well, providing stewards with additional angles and shots to aid their work. It is a dual-service concept that is now being considered, not just by other jurisdictions within racing, but other sports as well.

The unpredictability of the Irish weather has always been a challenge, but in recent years, the extremes of inclemency have made the recent fog issues at Thurles feel like child’s play.

“When we hear that little man in Australia talking about minus 10 and frosty roads, we have to be thinking ahead” laughs Arnold. “And then we have to react to whatever the weather brings us.

“The Christmas of 2010 was probably the biggest challenge for us. On the 26th we have our three race meetings. Generally speaking, we put our trucks on site ahead of Christmas. If the weather is predicted to be bad, you don’t want to be driving big trucks on a bad road.

“In 2010, we also had a rugby game in Thomond in the evening. So we would have thought that would be fine to get down there in the evening, but the weather was so bad, there was no moving trucks. We got about a mile from our base and the trucks were sliding off the road.

“We had to come up with Plan B. The truck that was covering racing in Limerick, as soon as they came off air, we got a Garda escort to Thomond and set up there.

“Now it wasn’t covered with the same level of facilities that would have been in the original plan, but it was covered and the people at home got to see the game. It was a challenge for everybody involved but everybody rose to the challenge and the programme was delivered.”

While this is a well-oiled machine that knows what it needs to do on race-day down to the minutest detail, that doesn’t change the practicalities of what is involved. The logistics of getting the people and the equipment to a venue must be organised during the week. The day itself is a lengthy one.

“We have to be on site in the region of four to five hours before the first race. It takes that long to get all the gear out, get everything tested.

“It’s not only the pictures; we’re also responsible for the public address, and the feed to the television on the racecourse, the weigh room, the stewards, At The Races. So everything has to be checked at 100% by an hour and a half before the first race.”

Afterwards, a highlights package might have to be compiled for RTÉ, HRI or the racecourse itself, so it’s up to 90 minutes after the last race before they are on the road home. But that’s the game and there’s no doubt that IRIS has raised it.

“It really challenged us when this contract went out to come up with new ideas as to how racing could be covered and should be covered. We think we’ve got it to a pretty good level at this stage. We’re only one year into it. We’ll see what we can push on next year and what we can improve.

“We’re always looking to what’s the next bit of technology, the latest craze. What we’re introducing at the moment is a six-speed camera called the Extreme.

“It’s a camera made by Grass Valley which Batty and I saw in Vegas at the National Broadcasters’ Convention last April. It gives you absolutely fantastic slowmo for horse racing or hurling, where there’s a lot of detail in the picture.

“We bought the first of those cameras in Europe and used them in the All-Ireland this year. We’d hope to introduce that to racing and other sports in the year ahead.”

On behalf of the viewer, thanks.