About the BBC's World Cup graphics
- 6 Jul 06, 01:26 PM
MUNICH - Not long left in the International Broadcast Centre now - is there anything else you would like to know about the BBC production here?
In the meantime, we've received plenty of emails asking about Match of the Day's on-screen graphics so I asked one of our graphics operators Alex Rice to explain more..
"I work for an external company called Delta Tre who operate all the graphics you see on Match of the Day.
There are four graphics operators working for the BBC during the World Cup - two people based in Berlin with the live presentation team, and two of us in Munich who provide all the graphics for the highlights programmes.
Our company also provides all the host broadcaster's graphics for Fifa, and before the tournament created a huge database containing the correct spelling of every player, team, referee and venue.
This database is used by television companies all over the world, so there is a consistency of graphics whichever television station you watch in any country.
That makes my job much easier - rather than have to write, check and double check the spelling of every player's name on our graphics, we can simply access the database for the correct version.
The two operators in Berlin produce all the graphics you see pre-match, at half-time and post-match: team line-ups, group tables, fixtures, analysis straps, trails for upcoming BBC programmes, competitions etc.
During matches all graphics are controlled by the host broadcaster. Several people have emailed the MOTD team asking why sponsors' names appear on certain graphics.
A limited number of captions have to have an official sponsor's logo attached to them - that's just the nature of a commercially funded event like the World Cup.
The size of all the match graphics are also determined by Fifa, not the BBC.
Accuracy and the ability to keep calm under pressure are probably the two most important attributes a graphics operator needs to have.
You could have 99 correct graphics during a programme and one mistake, and everyone will notice that one mistake!"
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